Venezuelan food minister: "If we have to import everything, we will"

[naaman fletcher]

http://english.eluniversal.com/2011/03/24/venezuelan-food-minister-if-we-have-to-import-everything-we-will.shtml

Minister of Food Carlos Osorio dismissed the reaction of some sectors after the announcement made by the Venezuelan government concerning the centralization of the imports of commodities. "Imports of food and commodities are only to meet people's needs, not to do business," he said.

"Some wanted to use imports only to do business. They became sugar importers and they had just a suitcase; they not even owned a sugar mill. (...) We have to fix that. He, who imports products, must do so because it is needed in Venezuela, not for business," Osorio said.

The Venezuelan Food minister also stated that imports of products such as wheat, milk, sugar, yellow corn and oil will be monitored by the government, "to the extent that if we have to import everything, we will. It does not mean that we are doing that (...) but we will not let the private sector manipulate and change international prices, because they are interested in the foreign exchange business."

As for the review of regulated prices, Osorio said that price adjustments of bread and pasta "were forced" by wheat higher prices in the global market. "We have taken a seat and talked to oil, sugar and milk producers to assess the situation. We have sent our teams to the manufacturing plants and we will adjust what we need to do."

[Bacchus39]

1. the new food security policy

it would be interesting to look at the expropriation of the fincas over the past several years and to see what became of them. the Zimbabwe policy.