Meeting between President Hugo Chavez and business leaders was abruptly cancelled at the last moment

Caracas Daily Journal (Jeremy Morgan): A meeting that was supposed to take place on Wednesday morning between President Hugo Chavez and business leaders to discuss economic policy and measures to promote private sector investment was abruptly cancelled at the last moment. The reason, explained recently ratified Communications & Information Minister Andres Izarra, was Finance Minister Rafael Isea's victory in last Sunday's primary to elect the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela's (PSUV) candidate to run for governor in Aragua state.

The law stipulates that a minister has to stand down from government office within 20 days of becoming a candidate, legal observers said. As to Isea's replacement, Izarra said the president didn't have anyone clearly in mind.

Given that the intention had been to announce measures promoting the private sector, it was thought better to wait until the new minister was chosen, Izarra continued. The new minister would announce steps to boost productive activity, he said, declining to go into further detail.

Cancellation of the meeting, apparently at the last moment, caught business leaders on the hop. Ahead of the meeting, they'd already set out their stalls in terms of indicating what they intended to tell the president. Whether it would have been music to his ears didn't seem likely from what they told reporters.

Eduardo Gomez Sigala, president of Conindustria, which represents small-and medium-sized companies in manufacturing and other sectors, returned to old ground by saying the best thing would be for the government to "guarantee the property rights of Venezuelan producers." By this he meant Chavez halting land expropriations, "the blackmail of recurrent investigations and persecutions" which didn't allow companies to dedicate themselves to producing, and officials' endless demands for paperwork.

Even before the meeting was cancelled, Jose Manuel Gonzalez, head of the Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Fedecamaras) -- Venezuela's primary business organization -- was downbeat about it having positive results. He said he didn't think that Chavez had called the meeting "in the spirit needed to push production in the country." Instead, he argued, the invitation had been motivated more by "electoral reasons" rather than a "conviction of working together."