[News] Venezuela’s Maduro Announces More Moves against “Parasitic Bourgeoisie”

[Anti-Imperialist News]

  Venezuela’s Maduro Announces More Moves against “Parasitic Bourgeoisie”

By Ewan Robertson
*http://venezuelanalysis.com/news/10208*

Mérida, 2^nd December 2013 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan president 
Nicolas Maduro announced a raft of new regulatory measures over the 
weekend as part of his ongoing “offensive” to deal with the country’s 
economic problems.

In a television interview on Sunday evening, Maduro explained that the 
government’s economic policies were aimed at “stabilising” the economy 
in order to be able to develop a “productive” economic model.

This year Venezuela has experienced shortages in several basic food and 
household goods, a black market dollar worth ten times the 
government-set exchange rate, and annual inflation of 54%.

The government argues that these problems are the product of an 
“economic war” being waged by business sectors and the opposition, while 
critics claim “government mismanagement” and state interventionist 
policies are to blame.

A central element of the government’s approach to the situation is to 
crack down on abuse of currency controls and reduce the value of the 
black market dollar, which is creating pricing distortions.

Currency controls have been in place since 2003 to prevent capital 
flight, and businesses are allocated official-rate dollars (6.3 BsF = US 
$1) by the state to import goods for production and consumption.

Yesterday the Venezuelan president attacked the illegal business 
practice of requesting official rate dollars and then selling these 
dollars on the black market for a profit, or importing goods and then 
selling them for far higher than the import price.

“Only one sector does this: the parasitic bourgeoisie, that created this 
phenomenon [of abusing currency controls], which we’re now going to 
reveal to the country and punish with the law,” he said.

A presidential commission is to be created with parliamentary 
legislators and public attorneys, who will identify and investigate 
companies that have abused state-granted dollars. Maduro said that 
“without a doubt” some public servants have also been complicit in 
currency scams.

An ex-official of the state’s foreign exchange commission Cadivi and his 
son were recently convicted of setting up false companies to illegally 
obtain state-granted foreign currency from 2010 to 2013.

Nicolas Maduro said Sunday that companies will now have to sign public 
pledges in order to be able to receive official-rate dollars. Products 
imported with these dollars will be marked with a new green label, to 
guarantee that “they are products imported with the dollars of the 
republic and can reach the consumer at a fair price”.

A new register of small and medium businesses has been set up which 
excludes companies that have previously abused currency controls from 
being able to access state-granted dollars. Maduro argued that all of 
these measures are part of an effort to “transform” the currency control 
system, which is now overseen by the new National Centre of Foreign Trade.

Another measure to bolster Venezuela’s currency, taken by the Central 
Bank (BCV), is to force banks to offer interest rates on saving accounts 
of at least 16%, up from 12.5% previously. It is hoped citizens will be 
encouraged to save more rather than immediately converting income into 
goods or foreign currencies as a means of conserving the bolivar’s value.

Today the government also made official the regulation of commercial 
leases in shopping centres, to 250 BsF (US $40) per square meter. The 
aim of this measure is to reduce rental costs for mall stores so that 
they can offer consumers lower “fair” prices.

Speaking to press yesterday, Maduro reiterated his commitment to 
tackling Venezuela’s oil-rentier economic model.

“There won’t be socialism on a rentier, speculative, capitalist economic 
base. Socialism has to be constructed on the basis of labour, on real 
productive bases, on the generation of new wealth, on an economy fed by 
its own resources,” he argued.

Published on Dec 2nd 2013 at 7.24pm

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