[P2P-F] Fwd: Venezuela Solidarity Weekly, May 16

Sun May 18 07:02:22 CEST 2014

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From: Alliance for Global Justice <afgj at afgj.org>
Date: Fri, May 16, 2014 at 10:46 PM
Subject: Venezuela Solidarity Weekly, May 16
To: michelsub2004 at gmail.com

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Justice]<http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=IXP9dbaVL48PK4HUrvOI8b5yOvCmRwDu>
     Venezuela Solidarity Weekly

*From **Correo de Orinoco
<http://org2.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lzZq%2B4UTO3Hfje8Mth3FWO38w%2BfZ5bUb>*

*Seven new universities created in 12 months*

As the people of Venezuela celebrated and reflected upon the first year of
Maduro’s Presidency, the Minister for University Education offered a
balance of the advances made in the field since Maduro was elected by
popular vote last April. Minister Melendez explained that in the previous
12 months, the Maduro administration has created or rehabilitated no less
than seven university institutions, more than were built in the entire 10
years previous to the1998 revolution led by Hugo Chavez.

The new public higher education institutions offer university level
education free of cost to thousands of citizens in remote parts of the
country, and join an increasingly powerful public university system which
includes the 36 new institutions built during the Chavez administration. In
the last year, university enrollment has increased by 130,000, advancing
from 2,503,000 in 2012 to 2,629,312 at the end of 2013. In 1998, before the
revolution, only 700,000 students were enrolled in tertiary education.
Venezuela now has one of the highest university enrollment figures in the
world.

*National Minimum Wage Raised 30% in Venezuela to Combat Inflation, Provide
Dignified Salary*

As International Worker’s Day was celebrated on May 1st, the Venezuelan
government made its traditional announcement of an increase in the national
minimum wage. President Nicolas Maduro informed this year would see a 40%
raise in the minimum wage and indicated that another increase could come in
the last trimester of the year. The Venezuelan government also continued
with it's economic offensive this week by initiating a series of regional
commissions intended to jump start domestic production and ﬁght speculation
in the nation's private and public sectors.

*Economic Reforms, Fight Against Speculation Continue in Venezuela*

The Venezuelan government continued with its economic offensive by
initiating a series of regional commissions intended to jump start domestic
production and ﬁght speculation in the nation’s private and public sectors.

 In the states of Zulia, Monagas, and Aragua, government ofﬁcials met with
representatives of the nation’s industries to sketch a plan of action that
will stimulate growth and help put an end to the problem of shortages that
has affected the economy over the past months. Rafael Ramirez, Venezuela’s
Oil Minister and Vice President for Economic Affairs, has spearheaded the
commissions.

 “We need to expand our productive forces, amplify our capacity to produce
and strengthen national production... It is for this reason that I am again
making a call to all of our workers, all of our colleagues who are part of
our productive apparatus to create a powerful force which through
collective work will take strides to replace an economy based on oil
rents,” Ramirez said during a conversation with socialist President Nicolas
Maduro on April 22.

 The meetings are part of a wider package of reforms being implemented by
the Maduro administration and which have included a loosening of the South
American nation’s capital control policy.

 In March, the government announced the creation of a new exchange regime,
SICAD 2, which has opened access to foreign exchange for businesses and
ordinary citizens. The measure has been designed to ﬁght speculation in the
price of the dollar on the black market and to relieve the pressure for
exchange that has caused a bottleneck for many importers of basic goods and
industrial inputs.

 President Nicolas Maduro commented that the newly formed working groups
have the goal of “ﬁne-tuning our productive plans for the reactivation of
our economy and for economic growth.”The head of state informed that the
government’s aim is to “to resolve speciﬁc problems which each economic
sector has in a given state and maintain our productive offensive to
strengthen our supply [of basic products]”.

 Maduro has outlined 11 strategic sectors that will receive increased
attention from the national government in the ongoing evolution of its
economic reforms. These areas include oil, petro-chemicals, construction,
industry, agriculture, agro-industry, textiles, mining, manufacturing,
communications, and high technology. A total of 1,689 businesses were
represented at Monday’s session which Rafael Ramirez described as
“tremendous.”

 “The Bolivarian Revolution has given visibility to our national
development,” he said during the meeting in the eastern state of
Monagas.“We have a plan that is profoundly national, revolutionary, and
points towards socialism”, Ramirez explained. “Nobody should be afraid of
that word. It is socialism with characteristics speciﬁc to our Bolivarian
system which allows the state to have control of the fundamental elements
of economic planning. But the national private sector should do what it is
meant to do: produce. Produce more and produce better.”

 In accordance with the alliance being forged with private businesses, the
government is offering ﬁnancing to productive sectors through its National
Development Fund (FONDEN) and the joint Chinese-Venezuelan Fund. “Once
again we are reaching out to productive business, commercial enterprises
and Venezuelan industries so that we can work together to achieve the ﬁnal
objective [of increasing domestic production]”, said Tareck El Aissami,
Governor of Aragua state.
  *FIGHTING ECONOMIC SABOTAGE*

 Parallel to the national government’s overhaul of economic policy and a
reconﬁguration of its foreign exchange regime has been a heightened
offensive against criminal activity in the private sector.

 Andreina Tarazon, Superintendent of the Maduro Administration’s Fair
Prices commission, announced that more than a thousand audits of companies
and individuals around the country have resulted in the arrest of 18 people
for price speculation and fraud.

 “We are announcing to the country the forceful action that we’re taking in
the ﬁght against impunity which is one of the principal elements that we
must combat in this second phase of our economic offensive,” Tarazon
declared. The Superintendent commented that those detained by the
authorities over the past week have been linked to crimes that include the
re-selling of price controlled primary food products.

 Tarazon also mentioned the problem of contraband and illegal trade with
Colombia which she considered to be “one of the crimes which lamentably
most affects supply in our country.” *According to government estimates,
more than 35 percent of Venezuelan products end up in Colombia for resale
as a result of smuggling.*

 The functionary informed that members of the Fair Price Commission have
been deployed around the country to inspect “everything that has to do with
the distribution, commercialization, and production of food products.” “The
principal irregularity is the speculation which occurs at different levels
of the productive chain. Many times the vendor ends up having to pay
inﬂated prices from the wholesaler. For this reason, we believe that it’s
fundamental to address the whole structure of the productive chain,”
Tarazon said.

 This latest round of audits follows on a similar initiative started by the
Maduro administration in November and December of last year which saw the
forced lowering of prices of consumer products after the government
uncovered usury and corruption. The Fair Price Superintendent assured that
the work of the commission will continue alongside the working groups
established by the national government.

 “We are incorporating more than 800 people in the second wave of training
for the Fair Prices Commission. They are colleagues who are going to join
us with a socialist ethic to strengthen the commission”, Tarazon afﬁrmed.
  *MINIMUM WAGE RAISED*

On Tuesday, President Maduro announced a 30% increase in the national
minimum wage, bringing the standard salary to 4,251.78 bolivars. In
addition to the minimum wage is the food, bonus, required for all workers,
which includes an additional 1,351 bolivars, bringing the total wage to
5,602 bolivars per month. The increase takes effect on May 1 and the Presi-
dent also said he would evaluate an additional raise in the minimum wage
during the last trimester of the year.

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