Twelve estatizadas companies go to the international arbitration

“It is necessary to look for a balance between the sectors public and prevailed there was, it before in Venezuela and we must maintain it” (VENANCIO PALACES)

Weeks ago Carlos Henrique Blohm it hardly assumed the challenge to preside over the American Venezuelan Camera of Commerce and Industry (Venamcham), with a membership of 1,100 national and foreign companies. That “fascinating” challenge, as it says, is going to allow to him “to foment the investment and the commerce between the United States and Venezuela " and to strengthen the Social Alliance that advances that binational organism, as they have driven it his predecessors.

Also it will be able “to contribute to the prosperity of our members and the country where we operated, that are Venezuela”, under principles of “free commerce, economic freedom and private property”. Convincing optimist sees itself him and.

Previously, in 1981, Blohm had accepted the commitment to lead Great Wood Looms, company founded on 1920 and acquired by its grandfathers in 1947. Graduated as economist and mechanical engineer in the Massachussets Institute of Technology (MIT), decided to study a masters of Administration in Harvard to draw for and to reframe some difficulties of the familiar business.

- In the survey that the Camera realised to the assistants to the forum on Economic Perspective 2010, the “political uncertainty” like determining factor in the performance arose again from the companies. Why?

- One talks about the approval of laws that hit to the private property. In May of 2009 the Law of Nationalization of the Services of Hydrocarbons was approved through which mechanisms outside the normal scheme of expropriations settle down. Also was approved Law of Earth Urban, that by the way gives a preferential right to the Government on lands that do not fulfill certain criteria, quite vague, where the communities and the advice (communal) can influence and make the property very uncertain of urban earth, hitting in the development of the cities.

This 1 of February reformed the Law of the Indepabis, which constitutes the most serious threat to the private property because it extends the previous law of the institute to all the goods and services, not only to the essential goods; in addition, one extends to all the goods that require for their production and distribution. That creates an enormous uncertainty, in fact, we think that it is going to cause (&.) in view of increase of cost of imports and the fact that rises of prices have until now not been clear although there has been increase of costs in controlled goods, but also creates uncertainty on goods noncontrolled because it is not clearly well defined which is the behavior of those goods.

It declares all the goods of public utility and it is required to happen neither through a judgment nor through the National Assembly. That worries and is going to de-stimulate new uses and investments.

-The companies have demonstrated malaise to him, desire to even go away of the country?

- I would not say that because it is difficult to measure, but what yes it is easy to measure she is that from 2007 there are 28 companies whose assets have been taken (by the State). Of that total, only 6 have been compensated and some partially. They are more than $12 billions in assets that have not been paid and we want that justice becomes, that follows the effective treaties and laws.

-They will go to some international arbitration?

- They are doing Some it.

-Which?

- I do not mean names but I believe that we have more than a dozen of cases that are in international arbitration, by very great amounts.

- A characteristic that was hidden in previous surveys, like was the category “bureaucracy and corruption”, appears like preoccupation component of the industralists. To it attributes what it?

- It is the case of the Inpsasel. Supposedly it is an institute so that the workers toil in a safe atmosphere, the companies respect the norms, something that seem to us correct and many of our members have been pioneering. But also it is changing the way to use it, like a mechanism to indoctrinate politically to the delegates chosen by the workers and to put to them contained opposite to which it is the harmonious performance between workers and company. I believe that can be very harmful. There are other things as desire to control the commerce of the essential goods through all the states of the country. There are continuous increases of the interventionism of the State in which it is the free commerce and the free economic activity that complican the way to make businesses in Venezuela. A balance between the sectors is due to look for public and prevailed; there was it before in Venezuela and we must maintain it.

-It creates opportune to get worse the dialogue with the Government or thinks that it does not have sense?

- We are trying to look for bridges with the different institutes. Many of our members have had contact and have been received in major or smaller degree, but the effective contacts are very few

-To what it will have?

- I do not believe that is not very recent either. If one sees the 60 years of the Camera, the first 30 years were of growth and of entrance per capita of the very high Venezuelan with respect to the rest of Latin America and in the last 30 years, due to the interventionism of the State and to the nationalization of the main industries at the end of the seventy, that tendency has changed. Because they have been the Eighties, ninety and two thousands, of stagnation or decrease of the entrance per capita by general tendency. I believe that we can have growth if we learn of the first 30 years when there was foreign investments and stability in the laws.

- But now one says that there is a process of inclusion and reduction of the poverty.

- We were on the way to solving the problem of exclusion through growth of all the social layers, that lost and caused the economic difficulties that also took perfectly explicable to political difficulties but of which we are not going to leave with the scheme nonrespect to the private property and company. The private company gives half or more of the national budgetary contribution in the form of taxes. The unions take the statistics and in 2009, 86% of the labor conflicts happened in the public sector. It is recognized that the private packages are superiors to the state ones.

-The electrical crisis what impact will have in the productive activity of the country?

- One of the economists who participated in the economic perspective forum in Valencia mentioned that probably it could have a 1% effect on the growth. That depends on rain. The industralists are worried, those that are preparations with plants do not know if they are going to count in time on fuel. There are diesel oil and gas problems to arrive. We are going to have a difficult year and the one that also comes.

-How he visualizes the binational commerce with the United States in the short term?

- If the imports of Venezuela towards the USA lowered 45% in 2009 with respect to 2008 well, in November of the past year the reduction already was of only 4%, thanks to the recovery of the price of petroleum and in spite of the smaller amount of barrels and the reductions in the nonoil exports. And that will cause that we see a recovery of the commerce with the USA.

-This means that the political speech does not affect the market nor the relations?

- It affects Yes them. If the legal conditions and of the people were better, Venezuela would have received more than $1,500 million in the round of Faja.

Mariela Leon
THE UNIVERSAL ONE