Colombia's Chocolates to restart buying

MEDELLIN (Reuters) - Colombia's Nacional De Chocolates NCH.CN will restart its Latin American acquisitions program this year, the company told the Reuters Latin America Investment Summit on Wednesday.

The country's biggest processed foods company sees acquisition opportunities in Central America and Peru, Chocolates President Carlos Enrique Piedrahita said.

"In 2008 we want to continue growing," he said.

"We plan to restart acquisitions," Piedrahita added. "We are looking at concrete possibilities in Central America and Peru."

The Medellin-based company is part of Colombia's biggest conglomerate, Grupo Empresarial Antioqueno (GEA). Chocolates expects more than $2.19 billion in sales this year, up 17 percent from 2007, Piedrahita said.

The company will continue operating in neighboring Venezuela, where it has a processed meats factory, despite recent diplomatic tensions between the two Andean countries.

Venezuela's left-wing President Hugo Chavez threatened to take over assets of Colombian companies operating in the country after a March 1 Colombian military raid into Ecuador that killed a Marxist rebel leader.

The attack sparked a regionwide diplomatic crisis and a short-lived military build-up.

"You have to take a long-term view of this, over 20 or 30 years," Piedrahita said. "From that standpoint, Venezuela is a natural market".

"We are staying in Venezuela," Piedrahita said.

Colombia has long complained that Venezuela and Ecuador do not do enough to help fight rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who are funded by the cocaine trade and often seek shelter in border areas of neighboring countries.

(For summit blog: summitnotebook.reuters.com/)

(Reporting by Javier Mozzo, editing by Gary Hill/Jeffrey Benkoe)