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AFP
Caracas
Uncertainty reigned in Venezuela on Saturday after President Nicolas Maduro unveiled a major economic reform plan aimed at halting the spiraling hyperinflation that has thrown the oil-rich, cash-poor South American country into chaos.
Ahead of a major currency overhaul on Monday, when Caracas will start issuing new banknotes on Monday after slashing five zeroes off the crippled bolivar, Maduro detailed other measures he hopes will pull Venezuela out of crisis.
Those measures -- revealed in a speech to the nation late Friday -- include a massive minimum wage hike, the fifth so far this year.
But analysts say the radical overhaul could only serve to make matters worse.
"There will be a lot of confusion in the next few days, for consumers and the private sector,"said the director of the Ecoanalitica consultancy, Asdrubal Oliveros.
"It's a chaotic scenario."
The embattled Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, said the country needed to show"fiscal discipline"and stop the excessive money printing that has been regular in recent years.
The new currency, the sovereign bolivar -- to distinguish from the current, and ironically named, strong bolivar -- will be anchored to the country's widely discredited cryptocurrency, the petro.
Each petro will be worth about $60, based on the price of a barrel of Venezuela's oil. In the new currency, that will be 3,600 sovereign bolivars -- signaling a massive devaluation.
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19/08/2018
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