Nicolás Maduro launches against the “criminal dollar” and prepares “drastic” actions against devaluation

The Venezuelan government said Saturday it was preparing “drastic” actions to try to do so stop the devaluation of the local currency – the bolivar -, which in the last week depreciated by 17% against the US dollar, while in the parallel market the depreciation reached 24%.

The so-called Bolivarian revolution “will take drastic measures in the face of this brutal rise in the dollar to protect people, consolidate healthy trade and ensure a happy and safe Christmas,” the Ministry of Interior and Justice said on Twitter, where several institutions executives have posted similar messages.

“The enemy is and will continue to be the imperialist mafias, who want to revive the criminal dollar,” the department added in another message.

Previously, the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, had ordered the economic team to “take measures in defense of the official rate” in view of the “criminal attack on the dollar”, whose price in the official market has increased by 20% in the last seven days ., according to reports from the Central Bank (BCV).

Then, the Executive Vice President and Minister of Economy, Delcy Rodríguez, indicated on Twitter that, together with the Vice President of Economics and Minister of Oil, Tareck El Aissami, they drew “a set of actions in defense of the foreign exchange market and the official rate.” But he did not specify any of the policies they intend to implement.

“The financial system, despite the criminal blockade, has grown significantly in 2022, increasing its deposits by 210% and its credit portfolio by 420%,” Rodríguez stressed.

On the same social network, El Aissami added: “We will not allow the usual extremists to put a stick in the wheel of growth”, alluding to the four quarters of improvement that the country has accumulated, after six years of recession.

Marketing control

This week the Executive decided to resume, after two years, a price control policy on more than 40 consumer products to combat “speculation” which, according to the government, has triggered inflation and hit the foreign exchange market in last weeks.

Venezuela emerged last December from a hyperinflation which it entered in 2017 and which, for 4 years, reduced the value of the bolivar, as well as the citizens’ confidence in that currency, for which they unofficially adopted the dollar – with which most transactions go to date – in an effort to protect their income.

With this unstoppable bull run of the dollar, the minimum monthly wage decreed in March this year by President Maduro, for workers and pensioners of 130 bolivars, is reduced to about 9.2 dollars at the official rate, and could continue to fall, according to local analysts.

“The economy in intensive care. Devaluation of 35% of the bolivar in 7 working days in December. The minimum wage and pension. The regime is confused and does not know what to do. There is no economic team. A change of model political and economic is urgent, this is not enough”, said the economist José Guerra, a former deputy in 2015, through social media.

The crisis in Venezuela has prompted about 7.1 million people, according to data from international organizations, to flee the country to other regions in search of better living conditions.

Source: agencies

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