Chavez concedes: Too many imports, too little national production...

VHeadline News Editor Patrick J. O'Donoghue reports:
President Chavez has admitted that imports are far too high. It has taken the government a long time to accept a nagging opposition accusation that Venezuela has been forced to import food to make up for deficiencies in domestic production.
Chavez made the admission at a ceremony handing out credits to small and medium entrepreneurs. The President told his audience that domestic production is failing to supply demand that has grown enormously. Venezuela, he challenged, is currently reaching the 30-million inhabitant mark and consumption among the popular classes has tripled after successive salary increases.
Private banks, the President complained, are not releasing credits to small and medium business persons and without that support national industry cannot develop quickly enough, making substitution of imports more complicated.
The State cannot own everything, Chavez conceded, declaring that his government is not Statist and not anti-private property. However, he maintained his government's position against the big private business associations interested only in their own profit margins to the detriment of the nation.
Defining his thought further, the President spelled out that private property is acceptable "always when it produces assets and services to satisfy needs and if its surpluses do not fall into the hands of monopolies and contribute to the accumulation of capital in a few hands exploiting consumers and workers."
Chavez reiterated that the fight against monopolies continues and ratified the push to make Venezuela self-sufficient in food.
Another factor that has not helped production in agriculture has been the year-long drought. At the moment, the government is reviewing its agricultural program and teams are visiting socialist farms and companies to check on the state of machinery and effectiveness of socialist companies in meeting production plans.
There have been important successes in many of the agrarian reform projects while others have not cut the mustard.