Consul closure hits citizens' wallets MIAMI, Jan. 22 (UPI) -- The closing of the Venezuelan consulate in Miami will threaten the finances of retirees, students and entrepreneurs in the United States, an official said. About 400 people each day and more than 200,000 each year visit the consulate in Miami to process paperwork to renew passports, obtain documents to receive money transfers and register births and deaths in the country, The Miami Herald reported Sunday. "The impact this will have on the commercial part is huge," said Lesly Simon, president of the Venezuelan American Chamber of Commerce. "In 2011, more than 64,000 documents were issued by the consulate, most of them certificates of origin for export. ... Many companies will now have to assume the cost of traveling to a consulate in another city for those procedures," she added. Venezuelans in Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina use the consulate to process more than 64,000 documents each year -- they will now have to travel to New Orleans, the next closest consulate, which currently only assists about 15 people each day, the Herald said. The decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to close of consulate came Jan. 13 in retaliation for the U.S. asking Consul-General Livia Acosta to leave. Chavez called the U.S. action on Jan. 6 "unfair and outrageous," El Universal reported.