28 companies of VenAmCham have been expropriated without compensating

Edward Jardine anticipates “a very difficult year” for the local economy, without growth and with inflation of 40% (Kisaí Mendoza)

President of American Venezuelan Camera of Industry and Comercio (VenAmCham), Edward Jardine, said that 28 companies affiliates to that binational organism “estatizadas and/or have been expropriated” from 2007 and the Government owes to them between 10 and 12 billions of dollars by his indemnifications.

Within the framework of the General Assembly Ordinaria of the Camera, Jardine reiterated that in the country “there is a hostile climate to invest. The investment levels are going to follow lowest. This year has been a disinvestment, has left more money del than it has entered. The disinvestment reaches to the 2,874 million dollars to the month of September”.

It showed the manager that “are companies that have decided to go away of the country”. And although it did not need the number and the names of those companies, it assured that of the membership of that organism “they have been estatizado, expropriated or confiscated 28 companies, which means that with such hostile conditions for the deprived company, there will be no investments”.

During the assembly it indicated that the “continued process of estatización of the Government once again assures an effect net disinvestment during this year. Venamcham will continue insisting on that the rights of private property are guaranteed, within the legal frame and the effective Constitution”.

And it emphasized that “the ingredient most important to restore the investments is the confidence, without the confidence will be no investment, is like the Law of Gravity; without clear rules of the game and public securities, there are no investments”. Despite it assured that “they are arranged to work with the Government to secure solutions. Until the moment our attempts have not been fruitful”.

It referred that in that binational organism they have observed “an improvement in the currency approval for the imports of raw materials, which has not had is a significant change in the authorizations of currency liquidations that present/display I leave behind of 6 to 8 months”. And it specified that Venamcham has a membership of 1,100 companies, nationals and foreigners, and these have presented/displayed problems in the distribution from dividends to their first houses.

“The majority of these companies”, said, “has not been able to repatriate dividends by two years more or, with the exception of the Bank of Venezuela, that letter against the confidence in the system and the country. We have asked the Government recalls to mind in that sense”.



Expectations
The president of VenAmCham showed that 2010 “are going to be very difficult for Venezuela. We think that there will be no economic growth and the inflation will oscillate between 35 and 40%. The slow recovery of prices of petroleum will help the Government to maintain a high level of public cost in an electoral year, contributing to a small recovery of the consumption”.

Analysts of that organ prehorseradish tree to the 2009 closing a significant fall in the consumption of communal properties between 5% and 10% (foods and clothes) and of more than 20% in sumptuary goods. As far as the type of change he assured that “there is an overvaluation of the bolivar (ample the differential of the official dollar and permutes), that is a breach that benefits more to the importer than to the producer”.

He also indicated that the commercial interchange between the United States and Venezuela, to September, was of $27.3 billions. “If east behavior is extrapolated towards end of year, we will finish with near numbers of $35 billions of the total interchange, the Venezuelan exports are 52% underneath to those of 2008 and this must essentially to differences of prices by petroleum barrel”.

Mariela Leon
THE UNIVERSAL ONE