Venezuela nationalizes foreign-owned supermarket chain

Venezuela has nationalized a foreign-owned chain of supermarkets, charging the retailer with price gouging after Caracas devalued the country’s currency.

On his weekly TV program, President Hugo Chavez on Sunday ordered the nationalization of the Almacenes Exito SA, which has stores in Caracas and several other cities and is headquartered in Colombia and controlled by French retailer Casino Guichard-Perrachon S.A.

“Because of multiple violations of Venezuelan laws the Exito chain will now belong to the Republic; there is no way back,” Chavez said.

Caracas devalued the Bolivar currency in early January in a bid to boost government finances and revive the recession-hit economy.

To prevent increased risks of a further hike in the Latin American country’s high inflation rate, Chavez warned retailers against raising prices and ordered close monitoring of shopping districts.

“How much longer are we going to allow transnational companies to come here to speculate with our prices?” the Venezuelan president asked viewers on his weekly TV program.

Chavez further said that fines and temporary closures were not enough to prevent such infringements and that legal reforms were underway to take over companies accused of speculation.

The expropriation of the Colombian-French owned hypermarket comes amid Venezuela’s tense diplomatic ties and thus poor trade relations with Colombia following Bogota’s decision to grant the US access to seven military bases on its soil.

Venezuela vehemently opposes US military presence in Latin America.