Venezuelan food producers step up exports to survive

MARACAIBO (Venezuela), Oct 23 (Reuters): Shrimp farming is booming in this western Venezuelan city, but little of the shellfish is destined for tables in this malnourished nation.
About 90 per cent of this shrimp is headed for Europe and Asia - with the blessing of President Nicolas Maduro.
Venezuela's leader has lauded food exports on television as a way to raise hard currency to stabilize an economy in crisis. And he is paving the way for more foreign sales. His administration has loosened restrictions to allow more production to go abroad, 10 food industry entrepreneurs and executives told Reuters.
In addition to seafood, Venezuelan cheese, avocados, citrus, breakfast cereal and candy are finding international buyers.
These new foreign sales are tiny, with most companies billing less than $1 million per year. Venezuela remains almost entirely dependent on oil exports, which amounted to $29 billion last year.
Still, the numbers signal a shift for a government that has long blamed the private sector for shortages of basic goods. Maduro and his predecessor, Hugo Chavez, for years accused food companies of hoarding and profiteering. Business leaders say empty shelves were the result of state policies such as price and currency controls and the nationalisation of farms and factories.
Since 2017, 140 Venezuelan businesses have begun exporting for the first time, half of them selling food products, according to data provided by Scottsdale, Arizona-based advisory firm Import Genius, which collects customs data for the import-export industry.
Some veteran exporters, meanwhile, are leaning more heavily than ever on foreign sales as Venezuela's currency has collapsed. Fernando Villamizar, the head of a Venezuelan shrimp industry association, said the withering of consumer spending power at home has forced producers to look abroad for growth.
On a recent morning at a facility owned by a member of the trade group, dozens of workers in baggy smocks, plastic gloves and face masks cleaned shellfish and put them in boxes to be frozen. An order that day was bound for France. The plant also ships to Spain and Vietnam.
"We have to sell outside the country" to survive, Villamizar said.
Venezuelan companies sold $81 million worth of shrimp abroad last year, up from $54 million in 2016, making it the country's 4th-largest non-oil export, according to figures from the Venezuelan Association of Exporters.
Maduro's enthusiasm for non-oil exports comes as US sanctions have hurt Venezuela's petroleum sales. To earn hard currency, his government is scrambling for alternatives.