Chinese motorcycle manufacturer Qianjiang Group, which owns the Keeway and Benelli brands, is now owed £30.7m by its bike distributor in Venezuela — with little prospect of payment in the near future.
Qianjiang’s Empire Keeway outpost in this strife-torn Latin American country is reportedly unable to repatriate revenue to its Chinese supplier because of draconian foreign exchange control regulations imposed by the revolutionary socialist Venezuelan government.Â
A massive and widening gap between the official and black-market exchange rates for Venezuela’s bolivar against the US dollar, stoked by annual inflation of around 60 per cent, has created a foreign currency famine at the Banco Central de Venezuela. This means local businesses can no longer convert funds to pay for generally dollar-denominated imports, which are now drying up as unsettled debt mounts.
According to Qianjiang Import & Export deputy general manager Gui Ming, Keeway has a 70 per cent motorcycle market share in Venezuela, worth more than 250,000 units annually — or perhaps worth nothing at all if his company can’t extract its money.