Beer Becomes the Latest Scarcity in a Venezuela Crippled by Shortages

Beer Becomes the Latest Scarcity in a Venezuela Crippled by Shortages - WSJ: "CARACAS, Venezuela—The largest private Venezuelan company and producer of 80% of the beer consumed here began to shut down its last beer plant on Friday, the latest deprivation in a country crippled by shortages.
After Empresas Polar SA closed its three other beer plants over the past several days, the shutting of the San Joaquin plant, near Valencia, will leave just a week’s supply of beer, the company said.
Like many other firms here, Polar blames the government, which hasn’t allocated the dollars the company needs to pay for imported raw materials such as malted barley.
President Nicolás Maduro’s government controls access to dollars, doling them out via a stringent currency exchange in which many companies find it hard to pay suppliers abroad.
There are far fewer dollars these days.
Foreign reserves have fallen to just a third of what they were in 2009, and Venezuela will struggle to pay billions in bond payments due later this year, according to Caracas-based consultancy Econometrica.
Triple-digit inflation here is the world’s highest.
The International Monetary Fund says the economy will contract 8% this year.
The country’s 30 million people have withstood shortages of food and medicine, their daily life punctuated by rolling power blackouts. 
Now, beer is disappearing from store shelves."...