Venezuela has raised regulated prices on a number of food items, including beef and bread, following nagging food shortages last year that businesses blamed on stifling government price controls.
While soaring food prices sparked riots around the world earlier this year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has maintained price controls since 2003 on staple products in an effort to ensure the nation's poor have access to groceries.
His government raised prices on goods ranging from margarine and mayonnaise to meat and wheat bread, and lifted controls on others such as tuna and oatmeal, according to the Official Gazette circulating on Tuesday.
Venezuelan shoppers during much of 2007 struggled to find products like milk and chicken, a problem the government blamed on hoarding by unscrupulous merchants. Business leaders said price controls choked production and caused the shortages.
Chavez largely resolved the shortages this year by raising some prices, speeding food imports and creating a new chain of government-subsidized supermarkets.
The OPEC nation has posted booming economic growth due to high oil prices but inflation through July of this year has reached a whopping 17.3 percent.
Riots have broken out from Haiti to Egypt this year as high commodities prices have put staple goods out of the reach of millions of poor residents of third-world countries.
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