Socialist Venezuela talks with Colombian companies about the seizure of assets from the Chávez era

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AP

Venezuela’s socialist government is discussing compensation with at least two Colombian companies whose assets were confiscated during the government of late President Hugo Chávez.

By: Bloomberg

Colombia’s largest cement manufacturer, Cementos Argos SA, is in talks about the possible acquisition of a state-owned cement plant near Venezuela’s Caribbean coast, according to Germán Umaña, Colombia’s minister of commerce and tourism. An expropriated subsidiary of Cali-based sugar exporter Comercializadora Internacional de Azúcares y Mieles, Ciamsa, is also in negotiations to obtain compensation, Umaña said.

After years of tension, relations between the countries improved after Gustavo Petro won the presidency of Colombia in 2022 and immediately restored ties and reopened the border. Venezuela appears to want to resolve these trade disputes without a legal battle, Umaña said last week in an interview at his office in Bogotá.

Umaña, who previously headed the Colombian-Venezuelan chamber of commerce, said he had helped in the discussions. Chávez ordered hundreds of expropriations during his presidency from 1999 to 2013, from cattle ranches and food factories to parking lots and insurance companies, in line with his socialist vision of increasing the state’s role in the economy.

The Cementos Argos plant in western Venezuela was confiscated in 2006, while Ciamsa had a sugar mill expropriated in the Venezuelan state of Táchira in 2010. Now, after years of mismanagement, many of the expropriated companies are closed, inactive or working at a fraction of its capacity.

Saddled with hundreds of failed state companies and seeking to revive the country’s economy, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has handed control of some of them to private partners and even reversed some of the Chávez-era seizures. Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Cementos Argos’ acquisition of an operation near the Venezuelan coast would potentially facilitate exports to the United States. The company is applying for a U.S. license that would allow it to receive the asset as payment from Maduro’s government without violating sanctions, said a person with direct knowledge of the deal, who is not authorized to discuss details publicly.

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