Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has launched the second stage of his government's food flagship program called Mercal II.

Inaugurating an Artisan Market in Coro and a Supermercal, Chavez Frias says he hopes that 15 million Venezuelans will enjoy the services of the cheap food distribution system inaugurated two years ago ... "it will be biggest system of production, reproduction and consumption that Venezuela has ever had."

With Mercal II the program will have opened jobs to 47,000 people counting on 800 suppliers of goods.

• 3,000 food houses will be opened by July providing dinner and tea to poorer sectors of society.

The President insists that his government's agricultural policy will start supplying food produced in Venezuela.

Mercal II is expected to branch into other products apart from food, such as clothes, shoes and cosmetics.

Meanwhile, Chavez Frias' former Agricultural Minister and Ambassador to France, Hiriam Gaviria paints a different picture, saying imports are depressing the national production of foodstuffs.

Gaviria, who abandoned the President's cause in 2002-2003 and is currently head of the Agro-Food Alliance, claims that Venezuela imported $2.3 billion of food last year and has the lowest level of food consumption since 1960 with only Bolivia on a lower level.

"In 2004 we produced 79% of food that we produced in 1998 (20% less)  and we are exporting less than half of the agricultural goods we exported in 1998."