MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chavez nationalizes cement industry; Mexico condemns

Mexico yesterday condemned Venezuela's planned nationalization of the cement industry, which will affect Cemex, a major Mexican company.

“We can only condemn this action,” Finance Minister Agustín Carstens said in the city of Acapulco.

"The property and rights of Mexicans are not being respected," by the leftist government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Carstens said. Late Thursday President Hugo Chávez announced the immediate nationalization of Venezuela's cement industry, a move that will hit Mexico's Cemex, just a year after Chávez launched a wave of state takeovers. The former paratrooper last year launched a broad nationalization crusade in the energy and telecommunications sectors while threatening to go after other industries such as banking, cement and steel. "Nationalize it, and as of this instant take all the legal measures ... to nationalize in the short term all of the national cement industry," Chávez said during a televised speech. Chávez has frequently accused private cement companies of exporting their production rather than selling it into the domestic market to help ease a housing shortage that has drawn complaints from his supporters. Last year he warned of "corrective actions" against Venezuelan Cemex, a local division of Cemex after residents accused it of polluting. Analysts at the time said Cemex was big enough that it would not likely be affected by a takeover of its Venezuelan holdings. Investors in recent weeks have started worrying that the world's No. 3 cement producer could face lower profits as a result of an economic slowdown in the United States. Venezuela in 2007 took over the assets of Cementos Andinos, owned by Colombia's Argos. Chavez threatened to nationalize steelmaker Ternium Sidor over domestic supply complaints but eventually negotiated a deal to avoid it, and threatened to nationalize banks he accused of poor lending practices, but never carried out the threat. Thursday's announcement shows Chávez returning to his combative 2007 style of aggressive nationalizations after focusing this year on practical issues following his defeat in a December referendum that would have extended his socialist drive. He promised to attack day-to-day issues like food shortages and rampant crime after an energy sector nationalization drive that pushed Exxon Mobil and ConocoPhillips out of the OPEC nation. (Agencies)