Reuters, 05.29.03, 3:47 PM ET

CARACAS, Venezuela, May 29 (Reuters) - Venezuela's Central Bank Thursday lowered its discount rate for local banks seeking to borrow money to meet reserve requirements to 32 percent from 36 percent, the bank's Web page said.

The discount rate cut was effective Thursday. The Central Bank on April 10 had lowered the rate to 36 percent from 39 percent.

The latest reduction came as leftist President Hugo Chavez's government continued to apply tight currency controls and price curbs to shore up international reserves and the bolivar currency. (Reporting by Ana Isabel Martinez; editing by Gunna Dickson; Reuters messaging:

May 29 (<a href=quote.bloomberg.com>Bloomberg) -- Venezuela may change some of its foreign exchange restrictions to speed up dollar sales and relieve shortages of imported goods and raw materials, Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega said.

``We're re-evaluating the exchange system and all its rules,'' Nobrega told Union radio late yesterday. He didn't give details on what changes may be made.

President Hugo Chavez last week stripped the foreign exchange commission he created in January of its powers and put his Cabinet in charge of selling hard currency.

The commission distributed just $12 million of the $205 million was authorized to sell since exchange controls were imposed in January, Edgar Hernandez, president of the foreign exchange commission said last week. Last year, the central bank sold an average of about $50 million a day.

The result has been a shortage of products ranging from medicines to foodstuffs, as the country imports about 60 percent of what it consumes, and many companies rely on imported raw materials and parts to operate.

Nobrega said the government has authorized the sale of $338 million, and planned to authorize $105 million more this week. He didn't say how many dollars had been distributed.

Companies have complained that current prerequisites, such as providing proof they are up-to-date on tax payments, are too time- consuming.

Venezuela banned dollar sales at the beginning of the year to stem a decline in international reserves after a two-month general strike cut oil output, which accounted for 43 percent of government revenue last year.

Last Updated: May 29, 2003 08:46 EDT

<a href=sify.com>sify.com Thursday, 29 May , 2003, 14:05

Panama City: The 72 most beautiful women in the world have descended on Panama City for the June 3 Miss Universe pageant, but so far have had to brave downpours, paparazzi, protesting students, money problems and even a fist fight.

The contestants have been preparing for a week to replace reigning Miss Panama -- who was crowned in September after Miss Russia relinquished the title amid a swirl of reports about a secret marriage and pregnancy.

The contestants' every move have been shadowed by the tabloids, one of which reported that Miss Spain (Eva Maria Gonzalez) and her roommate Miss Colombia (Diana Lucia Mantilla) got into a fistfight over Gonzalez's smoking habit.

The two girls were all smiles later when they publicly denied the report. Mantilla also drew some attention when she gave fellow contestants copies of her rendition of the song, "I am Colombian."

Despite the almost constant downpours since they arrived, the contestants' grueling daily schedule remains on track: banquets, fashion shows by local designers, charity auctions and a candelight vigil for AIDS victims.

And all of the "misses" are trailed by the paparazzi's erupting flashes wherever they go.

However, the beauty queens had to cancel some public event on Wednesday, when hundreds of angry students took to the streets to protest tax reforms and the Miss Universe pageant itself.

Armed with rocks and sticks, the students blocked some main streets for eight hours, disrupting traffic and occasionally clashing with police.

Coinciding with the pageant, several labour unions will hold street marches on Tuesday to protest the government's tax reform and proposal to privatise the social security system.

The Miss Universe pageant organisers got an unexpected shock early on when it was announced that money problems could force Miss Venezuela out of the competition.

Venezuela is to the beauty pageant circuit what Australia is to cricket: Venezuela has won the Miss Universe title four times since it was first held 44 years ago, and is routinely among the finalists.

Venezuela has also won five Miss World and three Miss International titles. Venezuela's pageant organisers announced they could not raise the 80,000 dollars needed to send Mariangel Ruiz to Panama because of strict currency controls imposed in February amid massive anti-government protests in Caracas.

The money problem was later resolved, but Ruiz's late arrival generated unwelcome media gossip, with some reports calling her delay a strategic manoeuvre to tip the scales in Venezuela's favor.

Meanwhile, the media has complained of what it said was "mistreatment" by the hundreds of security agents and police in charge of protecting the 72 contestants.

Their complaint drew a response from Panamanian President Mireya Moscoso, who requested that security controls be somewhat relaxed. "Protect them, but be good mannered about it," she told the guards.

Asked who her favourite was, Moscoso said she could not say "because all are pretty and deserve the crown."

The new Miss Universe will be crowned at the Figali Convention Center, in the Panama Canal Village at Amador, a former US military base at the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal.

<a href=www.newindpress.com>Agencies Thursday May 29 2003 12:57 IST

VENEZUELA: A Venezuelan currency crisis almost dashed the Miss Universe '03 title hopes of Miss Venezuela ’03 Mariangel Ruiz. But intervention by a media company in the South American country will allow her to participate in the June 4 Miss Universe competition after all. The trouble erupted earlier this week, when Miss Venezuela pageant organizers had announced a cancellation of Mariangel’s trip to Panama, explaining that the $80,000 needed to pay her way could not be raised due to Venezuela’s recent restrictions on converting its bolivars into American dollars, which grew out of panic buying of the dollar in Venezuela earlier this year. At one point this week, Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso personally made pleas to Venezuelan officials to resolve the foreign-exchange snafu to allow Miss Venezuela to compete. Today, the 23-year-old Mariangel Ruiz is heading to the Miss Universe Pageant, thanks to the financing help of the Venezuelan media company with the pageant’s broadcast rights. The president of the Cisneros media group, Gustavo Cisneros, whose television channel Venevision transmits the national contest, will pay for the Venezuelan winner to take part. Based on the current exchange rate of 1,600 bolivars per dollar, the $80,000 American dollars Cisneros is putting up to make Miss Ruiz’s trip to Panama a reality amounts to a cool 128 million bolivars. The financing bailout averted what might have been a deep national embarrassment in Venezuela, which considers itself the beauty capital of the world. Beauty pageants are a matter of national passion and pride in Venezuela; the country’s contestants hold the record for winning the most titles — 12 of them — in the Miss Universe and Miss World competitions. In the U.S., NBC’s telecast of the 52nd Miss Universe competition airs live

Reuters, 05.28.03, 6:38 PM ET By Ana Isabel Martinez

CARACAS, Venezuela (Reuters) - Venezuela's CANTV is stirring up the Caracas stock exchange and not just because the nation's largest telecommunications firm is the traditional market leader.

Shares of CANTV, whose main shareholder is U.S. firm Verizon Communications, skyrocketed this week when investors discovered a lucrative loophole allowing them to skirt the nation's currency controls by buying the firm's stock.

A senior Caracas Stock Market source told Reuters that the Bank of New York Monday restarted conversions of the firm's local bolivar currency shares into dollar-denominated American Depositary Shares.

"From Monday, they have been converting them. The Bank of New York notified trading houses which are in the market," the source told Reuters on the condition of anonymity.

Since February when the government implemented the forex controls, the bank halted conversions while it studied whether the transactions would be legal under the new currency restrictions.

CANTV shares have risen 57 percent this month to historic highs and the stock has gained 18 percent this week alone.

The shares closed Wednesday on the Caracas bourse trading at 3,785 bolivars, down 1.7 percent from the previous day's close. The bolivar is set at 1,600 to the U.S. dollar under the current fixed exchange rate.

Buying the ADS shares (American Depositary Shares) of CANTV allows investors to convert bolivars into dollars and that creates a type of parallel currency market that the government has so far sternly rejected. Under the forex controls, many in the private sector have complained that the curbs are starving the economy of hard currency.

NO AUTHORIZATION

One senior CANTV source, who asked not to be identified, said that the firm was not involved in the conversions. A Bank of New York spokesman in New York said that the bank had not issued any statement regarding such transactions.

The state currency control board, Cadivi, said that it had not authorized the conversions.

"We have absolutely not authorized this kind of transaction...This is a very rigid currency control," Adina Bastidas, one of the Cadivi directors, told Reuters.

Still, the exchange control regime as it stands does not expressly forbid this type of transaction, which offers a discreet loophole with which to circumvent the tough curbs.

The official system only demands that ADS shares issued up to the date the controls were implemented should be registered with the Venezuelan securities and exchange commission. Shareholders must also apply to Cadivi for the currency to convert the stock, earnings and interest.

But Finance Minister Tobias Nobrega Wednesday acknowledged that the CANTV conversions were not illegal because they were not regulated under the controls. He said the government would make an announcement about the issue within the next few days.

Traders estimate that the exchange rate implicit in the transactions stands at around 2,300 bolivars to the U.S. dollar, well above the official 1,600 bolivar fixed rate. The scarcity of dollars has created a thriving black market trading at about 2,500 bolivars to the greenback. (Additional reporting by Silene Ramirez)