LA PAZ (BBC) -- The Bolivian government has seized control of the country's largest, privately-run tin smelter complex.

Signing a decree nationalizing the Vinto complex, President Evo Morales said there were no immediate plans to pay compensation to the site's owners.

More than 200 Bolivian soldiers were sent to occupy the complex, run by Swiss company Glencore.

Bolivia's leftist president last year moved to nationalize the country's energy industry.

The seizure of the Vinto complex comes a day after more than 20,000 miners called off demonstrations over planned tax increases, which had seen protestors clash with police in the administrative capital, La Paz.

Morales, a close ally of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, has been pressing for the country's key mining industry to come under state control. "The Vinto Metallurgical Complex returns to the control of the Bolivian state with all its current shares, allowing the

[state] Vinto Metallurgical Company to assume immediate administrative, technical, legal and financial control," the decree signed by Morales said.

The Venezuelan government earlier announced it had taken over the country's leading privately-owned power provider, marking the latest phase in Venezuela's nationalization program.

The state is to pay $740m for the 82% stake in Electricidad de Caracas, owned by U.S. company AES Corp.