Venezuelan President Threatens to Nationalize Banks

To punish Venezuelan banks and steel producers for alleged unscrupulous practices, President Hugo Chavez is threatening to nationalize them.

"Private banks have to give priority to financing the industrial sectors of Venezuela at low cost," Chavez said in a statement. "If banks don’t agree with this, it’s better that they go, that they turn over the banks to me, that we nationalize them and get all the banks to work for the development of the country and not to speculate and produce huge profits."

What’s not clear in Chavez’s plan, if it’s put into motion, is which banks he’s talking about exactly.  Is he threatening only Venezuelan banks?  Or does he also have his sights set on major international banks with subsidiaries in the country, such as Citigroup Inc.?

Chavez initiated a nationalization drive in January that is bringing the country’s largest telephone company CANTV and the electricity sector under state control. The state oil company also took over the last privately run oil operations in the country from major international oil companies on Tuesday.