Venezuela invites private sector with joint ventures

Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez said foreign investors have no longer “any room in the country” because they are only interested in making money and transferring earnings overseas. However, he invited private companies to joint ventures in “non strategic” areas of the economy. “The only purpose of capitalism has always been to obtain the most profits, that is why company owners take away overseas the money that belongs to the Venezuelan people, which our sovereign motherland” said Chavez during a rally with workers from the Argentine steel foundry Ternium-Sidor recently nationalized. Chavez criticized the multinational corporations adding that they are the ones “which really run the capitalist world, more than governments, legal systems, congresses and peoples”. Chávez in the last few years has been nationalizing companies from the oil, electricity, steel and cement sectors which he describes as “strategic”. But in spite of criticism he said he encourages Venezuela's private sector to work with his government to create new businesses and factories that would produce consumer goods. “My administration is open to joint ventures with private companies in 'non-strategic' areas of the economy. Cooperation should spur growth”, he underlined.