Blackouts threaten death blow to Venezuela’s industrial survivors.
The government said on April 4 that the power rationing plan meant Valencia would spend at most three hours a day without electricity.
But a dozen executives and workers there said outages were still lasting over 10 hours. Generators are costly and can only power a fraction of a business’s operations, they said, and many factories have shut down.
“The game is over. Companies are entering a state of despair due to their inviability,” said an executive of a food company with factories in Valencia, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Industrial companies this year are operating below 25 percent of capacity, according to industry group Conindustria. It estimated companies here lost about $220 million during the days in March without power, and would lose $100 million more in April.
Nestle’s factory, which produces baby food, halted production during the first blackout in early March and operations again froze two weeks later, with employees sent home until May, according to Rafael Garcia, a union leader at the plant.
Plus: “The outages have idled more than just factories. In the countryside, lack of power has prevented farmers from pumping water to irrigate fields.”
h/t SG