Venezuelan government inspectors temporarily shut dozens of retail stores this week, including three outlets run by France’s Groupe Casino, in a bid to prevent hefty price hikes following the devaluation of its currency.
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Last week, Hugo Chávez, president of Venezuela, devalued the 2.15 per dollar exchange rate, setting a level of 2.6 for imports of items including food and medicine and a rate of 4.3 for “non-essential” products, according to Business Week.
Chávez said the Venezuelan central bank would also start to defend the bolivar in the unregulated parallel market, where it sank this week to a four-month low of 6.48.
As a result, Chávez called on the military and consumer protection agency Indepabis to inspect 96 shops across the Caracas and Zulia state, closing 70 shops for 24 hours for “speculating and rising prices.”
The closures, which included appliance stores, food outlets and supermarkets, also included three large stores of the Exito hypermarket chain, majority owned by France-based Casino.
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By GlobalDataA spokesperson for Casino told just-food: “The government organisation has control over Venezuela and they decided that 70 of them will close for 24 hours.
“The pricing was a general point regarding the 90 hypermarkets that were checked. But it does not concern our supermarkets. The government wanted this organisation to check supermarkets regarding the pricing, but it is over now because it was only for 24 hours,” the spokesperson said.
Chávez argues that the change will discourage imports of non-essential goods and encourage domestic production of items such as food and clothing.
However, critics believe the threats are a “futile attempt to prevent the devaluation from pushing up inflation”, which at 25% is already the highest in Latin America.
