Venezuela's government is accelerating plans to expropriate local agribusinesses and extend state control over foreign oil and mining industries, fulfilling President Hugo Chávez's “revolutionary” economic agenda.

Hugo de los Reyes Chávez, the governor of the province of Barinas and the president's father, issued a decree on Monday expropriating a flour milling plant belonging to Polar, Venezuela's largest food company and the country's biggest private-sector employer.