Chavez warns to nationalise largest steel co
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise the country's largest steel company and private banks unless they make national interests a priority.
By Agencies |
CARACAS: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to nationalise the country's largest steel company and private banks unless they make national interests a priority.
In a nationally televised speech, yesterday, the leftist president said he would nationalise steel maker Sidor if it continued to sell its products abroad instead of selling them to domestic industries, particularly in the oil sector. He also announced plans for a law to force the private banking sector to give top priority to the financing of domestic companies.
If the banks flout the law, he warned, "they should leave."
The outspoken champion of "21st century socialism" and leader of the world's fifth-largest oil exporter holds the power to rule by decree for 18 months, granted in January by parliament.
Chavez said that Sidor -- a multinational steel maker that makes 60,000 tons of tubes for the oil industry -- "had created a monopoly through its relationships with other companies and they only supply the raw material to these companies, leaving us to import these tubes from China."
"That is unacceptable. If Sidor, which was privatised, does not accept from now on to change this way of operating, then they will force me to nationalise it the same way we did with CANTV," the state telecommunications firm.
Sidor was privatised in 1997 and acquired by the Latin American consortium Orinoquia, which groups Siderar of Argentina, Mexican firms Tenaris Tamsa and Hylsamex, Usiminas of Brazil and Venezuelan firm Sivensa. The Venezuelan state owns 10 per cent of its shares.
In a nationally televised speech, yesterday, the leftist president said he would nationalise steel maker Sidor if it continued to sell its products abroad instead of selling them to domestic industries, particularly in the oil sector. He also announced plans for a law to force the private banking sector to give top priority to the financing of domestic companies.
If the banks flout the law, he warned, "they should leave."
The outspoken champion of "21st century socialism" and leader of the world's fifth-largest oil exporter holds the power to rule by decree for 18 months, granted in January by parliament.
Chavez said that Sidor -- a multinational steel maker that makes 60,000 tons of tubes for the oil industry -- "had created a monopoly through its relationships with other companies and they only supply the raw material to these companies, leaving us to import these tubes from China."
"That is unacceptable. If Sidor, which was privatised, does not accept from now on to change this way of operating, then they will force me to nationalise it the same way we did with CANTV," the state telecommunications firm.
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Sidor was privatised in 1997 and acquired by the Latin American consortium Orinoquia, which groups Siderar of Argentina, Mexican firms Tenaris Tamsa and Hylsamex, Usiminas of Brazil and Venezuelan firm Sivensa. The Venezuelan state owns 10 per cent of its shares.
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