A new category of maximum price will applied to all goods and services, stipulating a 30% maximum profit for retailers determined on the basis of “real costs of production and commercialization”.
Within this new schema, importers will be entitled to a maximum profit of 20%, while domestic producers will be allowed to take in a 30% maximum gain in an effort to stimulate national production.
By capping profits in each rung of the production chain, the government aims to put a halt to the speculative spiral rapidly driving up the prices of everyday goods, which constantly erodes the purchasing power of Venezuela’s popular sectors.
Additionally, Maduro announced a modification applying to food and health services, a category, which the government says has been manipulated by private retailers. The new “Fair Price” registry will be determined unilaterally by Venezuela’s National Superintendence of Fair Prices over the next 30 days.
In order to enforce the new “fair price” regime, Maduro also unveiled tougher punishments for speculation, which will be detected by evaluating the net income of private firms in light of new regulations on maximum price and maximum profit.
The government will now impose steeper penalties on retailers who remark the price of goods, which may include jail time. Furthermore, the common practice of fixing prices on the basis of the parallel dollar will now be considered an offense.
Apart from measures against speculation, Maduro also announced a 30% across-the-board salary increase for public sector workers and armed forces personnel, which comes on the heels of a 30% raise in the national minimum wage announced last week. The salary adjustment was coupled with the approval of 110,000 new pensioners as part of the national pension system, which has been massively expanded under the Bolivarian administrations of Chávez and Maduro.
