Controversial Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez, scourge of a number of Western multinationals, has reportedly turned his attention to packaging giant Tetra Pak and threatened to ride roughshod over patents protecting the group’s products.
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According to a Bloomberg report, Chavez used his weekly programme on state TV to question why Venezuela could not make Tetra Pak-style products domestically.
“We have aluminium and paper, why can’t we make that material here?” Chavez said on Sunday (14 June) during his weekly “Alo Presidente” programme.
“What are patents? That’s universal knowledge. We don’t have to be subject to capitalist laws.”
A Tetra Pak spokesman said the Sweden-based firm would start talks with the Venezuelan government “to better understand the rationale of [Chavez’s] statement”.
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By GlobalData“The statement by President Chavez obviously surprised us given the international recognition of the importance of patents,” the spokesman told just-food.
“Tetra Pak employs 225 people in Venezuela and has a production plant for gable top packages in the country since 1993.”
Last week, Venezuela banned Coca-Cola Zero over alleged safety concerns. The Coca-Cola Co. and its local bottler have agreed to temporarily pull Coca-Cola Zero from Venezuelan shelves but has insisted its product safe and has started talks with the Government.
In March, Chavez ordered the expropriation of a rice plant owned by Cargill.
