President Chávez rebuts hike in coffee price; threatens manufacturers

Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez threatened Friday to nationalize coffee manufacturers and countered any increase in price for consumers. Shortage of some items is responsibility of sectors that “manipulate and monopolize. If the government does not please them by increasing prices as they wish, then they do not put the item on sale.”

“If they fail to sell it, we will take it from them. That coffee is not theirs, but it belongs to the country,” Chávez said in the middle of a speech to announce the beginning of parliament sessions. “There will be need to pay them for a real cost of the coffee. Therefore, I ask you for inexorable laws.”

However, the ruler conceded that he had approved a “fair, notable” rise of green coffee prices.