Breve reporte de Venezuela a un turco interesado en negocios.

Hi mr. XXX, Happy New Year. Hope all is well in Turkey. The situation in Venezuela, as expected, has gotten worse. Maduro´s radical policies have basically demolished the economy. There is a recent Decree with status of Law that was enacted a couple of weeks ago. It´s called the New Law on Fair Costs and Prices. I´m sure you may have seen that on the news when doing research on Venezuelan matters. This regulation basically forbids a profit of more than 30% for any private businessman.

FEDECAMARAS, one of the chambers, actually the most important chamber of commerce and industry in Venezuela (we tried to contact them when you visited in 2011), claimed that in a meeting of the board of directors, it was unanimously decided to take legal actions to request the annulment of the Law of Costs and Fair Prices. Obviously this would just be a formality. It is more than evident than with a politicized System of Justice they would never even consider this lawsuit. This is perhaps the worse regulation ever imposed by the government. Recently many private international car industry companies such as Toyota, General Motors and Chrysler have decided to close their doors and leave the country. As economists say: An 80% inflation rate minus a 30% legal permitted profit= 50% loss for the private sector.

This year has also been the year were the difference of the official rate dollar and the parallel has been more than abysmal. We have an official dollar at Bs.12 (it now depends on a monthly auction of a determined amount of dollars and not on a stable rate as before) We currently have a Bs,81,7 parallel rate. This numbers raise up by the day. We have a minimum monthly legal wage of Bs. 2970 which equals, yes, $36.35 dollars. Governmental discussions are taking place on the matter of parallel rate decriminalization. This is not yet official, however it´s been discussed these days. Politically, these last couple of days have been rather tense. Spontaneous protests are arising after many months of silence. Scarcity of basic supplies (such as milk, sugar, chicken and even toilet paper and napkins) and a raging insecurity have been detonators. Some students have already been arrested and taken to a maximum security prison in "Falcon" State. The situation for importing is worse than it ever was. The government will enforce the companies who receive official rate dollars to publicly declare it to their customers as to prevent them from selling their products at a parallel rate.

This pretty much sums up the situation. Anything else that you may want to know, don´t hesitate to contact me. Best, María Teresa Toro