Venezuela Faces Inflation Crisis This Year

Inflation in oil-rich Venezuela could hit 30% this year and requires a joint effort by the private and public sectors to curb it, the country's top business leader said Tuesday. 'Inflation has gotten out of hand. Either we all agree to sit down to see how we can control it, or it will be the people who pay all the consequences,' Federation of Chambers of Commerce (Fedecamaras) President Jose Manuel Gonzalez told Union Radio. Inflation in Venezuela hit 22.5% in 2007, the highest in Latin America, and this year could top 30%, Gonzalez said. In Caracas, food prices have spiraled upward by 47.3% in the past 12 months, according to Central Bank figures. Gonzalez said he saw encouraging signs the country's new finance minister was 'aiming for the right goals.'