Article originally posted by AP

In its latest bid to brake soaring inflation, Venezuela’s government said Tuesday it will make street vendors freeze their prices, threatening violators with fines, confiscations and even jail.

President Hugo Chavez has been struggling to contain the surge in consumer prices, now running at an annual rate of 31.2 percent, the highest in Latin America.

Venezuelans who survive hawking goods on city sidewalks won’t be able to sell more than 20 different products that fall under price controls once the rules take affect in 30 days, according to regulations published in the Official Gazette.

Chavez imposed price controls in 2003, but the rules applied only to formal businesses. The new regulations extend the controls to warehouses where peddlers store their goods.

Johan Medina, a 22-year-old who sells cheese in gritty downtown Caracas, warned that the change could make business difficult for vendors who often struggle to find wholesale products at discount prices and sell them at a modest profit.

“If you buy a product with unregulated prices, you have to sell it at a higher price,” Medina said.

The government doesn’t count how many informal vendors sell regulated products, but a stroll down a couple blocks of any of Venezuela’s bustling cities will find hundreds — if not thousands — of vendors hawking wares.

Analysts doubt the measure will help significantly reduce inflation.

“I don’t think this decision is going to have a dramatic effect on the economy,” said Luis Vicente Leon, an economist at the local Datanalisis polling firm.

Authorities are already struggling to supervise formal businesses and are going to find it tough also enforcing the regulations on vendors, he predicted.

Economists like Leon contend inflation is running in double digits because the South American nation’s farms and food production companies aren’t producing enough and because the government isn’t providing sufficient U.S. dollars to importers to satisfy domestic demand.

Chavez blames the shortages on private businesses. He accuses them of intentionally reducing production as a means of undermining his efforts to revive the economy and shift Venezuela to a more socialist society.