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Many of the middle-class and wealthy are leaving as takeovers of private businesses increase, with 207 just this year.
But hundreds of thousands of foreign merchants and laborers have arrived to take their place.
“I feel like I can finally breathe again,” said a boat maker, who moved his operation to Colombia, creating more than 100 jobs there. “I’ve gone from a country where fear is constant over crime and state takeovers to a place that actually welcomes companies involved in something other than oil.”
But the immigrants only see opportunity and continue to arrive, including about 4 million Colombians. “There’s work in Venezuela for those who want it,” said a Colombian laborer who moved to Caracas last year, finding jobs as a watchman and at a chicken-processing plant. “This place isn’t perfect, but it’s better than what I left behind.”
