Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, beset by a recession that is hurting his popularity, has turned his sights on international car companies, threatening them with nationalization and pledging to ramp up government intervention in their local businesses.
The populist leader has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.'s local assembly plant if the Japanese car maker doesn't produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and transfer new technologies and manufacturing methods to its local unit. He said other car companies were also guilty of not transferring enough technology, mentioning Fiat SpA of Italy, which controls Chrysler Group LLC, and General Motors Co.
The president ordered his trade minister, Eduardo Saman, to inspect the Toyota plant. He said if the inspection shows Toyota isn't producing what he thinks it should and isn't transferring technology, the government may consider taking over its plant and have a Chinese company operate it.
'We'll take it, we'll expropriate it, we'll pay them what it is worth and immediately call on the Chinese,' Mr. Chávez said in a televised address late Wednesday.
Mr. Chávez, a former army officer who has been in power longer than a decade, has nationalized dozens of foreign-owned companies—and sometimes entire sectors of the economy, including electricity firms, cement companies, coffee companies and oil-services firms."
