Venezuela Extends Freeze on Foreign Exchange

www.voanews.com VOA News 28 Jan 2003, 16:58 UTC

The Venezuelan government has extended a freeze on foreign exchange trade for another week in an effort to protect the value of the country's currency.

Officials are expected to set a fixed exchange rate for the bolivar, which has lost at least 25 percent of its value this year.

The halt on trading began last Wednesday and is intended to prevent capital flight from Venezuela as a two-month anti-government strike continues.

The work stoppage had nearly halted the country's normal oil production of more than three million barrels per day. Striking oil executives said Tuesday the production is now more than one million barrels per day.

The government has fired an estimated 3,000 dissident state oil workers and deployed troops to oil installations to restart operations.

Some business owners have returned to work, saying the walkout has cost them thousands of dollars in lost income.

President Hugo Chavez announced Sunday he would impose price controls on medicine and food.

Mr. Chavez, a former paratrooper who survived a short-lived coup in April 2002, refuses to give in to opposition demands to step down or call early elections.