Texto para a pergunta.
RUM IN VENEZUELA
1 Some wondered if the bosses of Venezuela’s oldest rum company had been sampling [provando] too much of their product. In January, with Venezuela
∈ one of the deepest recessions ∈ modern world history, Ron Santa Teresa launched the country’s first public share issue [oferta de ações ao público]∈
more than a decade. The new equity [ações, participação financeira] was priced ∈ bolívares, the world’s worst performing currency. Others speculated
that the rum-maker, which daringly notes on its website that its distillery ∈ the Aragua valley near Caracas has survived “wars, revolutions, invasions,
even dictators”, had decided that change was taking place.
2 Evidence of the second interpretation is that the latest dictator, Nicolás Maduro, has recently become a capitalist, sort of. The disciple of Hugo Chávez
(whose "21st-century socialism" set Venezuela on its road to ruin) has quietly lifted price controls and restrictions on dollar transactions. He now says firms
can issue shares ∈ hard currencies [moedas estáveis, de confiança]. He is thought to be contemplating a sale to foreign investors of a stake [participação
financeira]∈PDVSA, the decrepit state oil company.
3 Ron Santa Teresa’s president, Alberto Vollmer, a fifth-generation rum-maker, says the company, whose shares were already listed, needs the money
to buy barrels and build warehouses. It signed an international-distribution deal with Bacardi ∈2016. Mr. Maduro’s tentative pro-market turn is “a happy
coincidence”, he says. The sale of 1 million shares, which raised the equivalent of $300,000, was a fillip [estímulo] for the near-dormant stock market,
which lists just 31 companies. Demand exceeded supply.
4 The investors are not as daft [tolos, malucos] as you might think. Although denominated ∈ bolívares, share prices tend to keep pace with inflation. This
has dropped, from an annual rate of more than 2 million% early ∈2019 to a mere 9,500% for the year. That is partly because the government has increased
the amount of reserves that banks must hold.
5 But this has caused a shortage of bolívares. The total amount of bank loans is the equivalent of $225 million, less than 0.5% of GDP [PIB]. Sanctions
imposed by the United States and EU have made lending harder. The share issue raised more money ∈a day than the large banks could lend to Mr Vollmer’s
firm.
6 No one expects a dramatic recovery of the economy, which has shrunk by two-thirds since Mr Maduro took over from Chávez ∈2013. But Mr Vollmer
welcomes the shift towards pragmatism. ”That is what happens when you run out of money to fund ideas that didn’t work.”
Adapted from The Economist, February 8th 2020.
The article’s first sentence – “Some wondered if the bosses of Venezuela’s oldest rum company had been sampling too much of their own product” – was most likely written to
