New Distribution Centres to Widen Access to Venezuelan State Goods and Services
Venezuela’s first Direct Distribution Centre (CDD), was installed yesterday in the nationalised Bicentennial Supermarket Terrazas del Avila, Miranda state, in an effort to directly link consumers and products produced by the Venezuelan state.
Mérida, November 18th 2011 (Venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuela’s first Direct Distribution Centre (CDD), was installed yesterday in the nationalised Bicentennial Supermarket Terrazas del Avila, Miranda state, in an effort to directly link consumers and products produced by the Venezuelan state.
The CDD’s offer products and services directly from the country’s nationalised companies in a bid to widen access to goods and services at “fair prices” for the population, while tackling price hiking and speculation by intermediaries in the commercial chain.
“These spaces are for the direct distribution of goods and services, removing intermediaries, for the health of the economy and to break speculation networks,” announced Ricardo Menéndez, government minister for Science, Technology and Intermediary Industries, at yesterday’s inauguration ceremony of the new initiative.
Mobile phones from Vetleca and Orinoquia, computers and equipment from Industrial Technologies Venezuela (VIT), “Atomic Bicycles”, and packages from state tourism company Venetur are among the state products and services offered in the centre. It’s “as if the consumer had gone straight to the factory with the family budget to spend,” stated Venezuela’s state news agency AVN.
Menéndez explained that the CDDs will be installed throughout the country within the state-owned Bicentennial Supermarket chain, and that a centre is also being constructed on Avenida Urdenata in central Caracas.
The new initiative forms part of the Venezuelan government’s policy of ensuring goods and services to the Venezuelan people while boosting the economy and tackling speculation practices, the minister concluded.
The Bicentennial Supermarket chain was formed from private supermarket company Éxito, which was nationalised in January 2010 in a response to price speculation offenses.
Also in July of this year legislation aimed at combating inflation and price speculation by controlling prices across key sectors of the economy, the Law for the Protection and Defense of Economic Rights for People to Access Goods and Services, or “Law for Just Prices and Costs”, was passed.