http://www.eluniversal.com/economia/111208/venezuelan-govn-t-fails-to-curb-rising-food-pricesDetermined to curb rising food prices, the Venezuelan government has increased loans to farmers and started inspection of stores to punish non-compliance with price controls. Authorities have also kept the marketing structure they had set up, but the results have been far from satisfactory.
Data from the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) show that in the first 11 months, the price of food and non-alcoholic beverages rose 31.3%, which is almost the same as the 31.1% increase reported in the same period of 2010.
According to analysts, food inflation is largely due to the fact that supply does not meet demand, even though the financial system has dramatically increased loans to the agricultural sector.
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The Central Bank of Venezuela has reported that agriculture production has been declining since 2008, and its growth was barely above 0% last year.