eBusiness Weekly
Caracas. — Venezuelans are struggling to carry out basic transactions like purchasing food as the value of their currency, the bolivar, has plunged against the dollar amid the country’s worsening economic collapse.
According to Reuters, over the past year, Venezuela’s currency weakened 97,5 percent against the greenback: Put another way, $1,000 of local currency purchased in early January would be worth just $25 now. The annual inflation rate in 2017 could reach $2 000. Though at least one other estimate puts the real rate of inflation closer to 2 800 percent.
Of course, President Maduro has blamed websites like DolarToday — which publishes the closest thing to an official black-market rate by surveying clandestine exchanges in Caracas and other cities — for the spread of black-market activity, part of a conspiracy organized by Washington and his local political opponents to force him from power.
One of the unintended consequences of the bolivar’s collapse has been a social experiment of sorts in the use of digital currencies: As we noted back in October, as many as 100,000 people are now mining digital currencies in Venezuela, defying a government crackdown that’s seen many of them thrown in prison.
But for those who can’t or haven’t resorted to transacting in bitcoin, an increasingly scarce supply of dollars is creating intractable problems for millions of Venezuelans, Reuters reported.
For many, simple purchases like a new tire for their car are simply out of reach.
There’s no point keeping bolivars.
A practice that was initially adopted by shops catering to wealthy and middle-class Venezuelans is spreading to merchants selling everything from foodstuffs to medicine. Food sellers, dental and medical clinics, and others are starting to charge in dollars or their black-market equivalent — putting many basic goods and services out of reach for a growing number of Venezuelans.
“I can’t think in bolivars anymore, because you have to give a different price every hour,” said Yoselin Aguirre, 27, who makes and sells jewellery in the Paraguana peninsula and has recently pegged prices to the dollar. “To survive, you have to dollarise.”
The socialist government of the late president Hugo Chavez in 2003 brought in the strict controls in order to curb capital flight, as the wealthy sought to move money out of Venezuela after a coup attempt and major oil strike the previous year.
Oil revenue was initially able to bolster artificial exchange rates, though the black market grew and now is becoming unmanageable for the government.
Still, President Nicolas Maduro has maintained his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez’s policies on capital controls, even as the spread between the official rate – some 10 bolivars per dollar – and the black market rate – of around 110,000 per dollar – is now huge.
The trend is angering Venezuelans who don’t have access to dollars. As Reuters pointed out, it also dampened Christmas celebrations this year due to a shortage of pine trees, toys, meat, chicken, cornmeal…the list goes on. — Zero Hedge.
