Venezuela food giant halts production of pasta, saying government not allotting dollars
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Venezuela's biggest food company is halting work at one of its facilities because of government delays in allotting it dollars to buy wheat from foreign suppliers.
Empresas Polar said in a statement Tuesday that it had no choice but to suspend production and furlough workers at a pasta assembly line after emergency supplies lent by other companies ran out. It gave no date for resuming production of the Primor and Gran Senora brands at a facility in the western city of Maracaibo.
Polar in January said it is owed $463 million by the government agency that controls the nation's dollar supplies and that the waiting time to process requests has more than quadrupled to 230 days.
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The move adds to shortages that have climbed to a record this year.