REUTERS
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday devalued the currency and raised heavily subsidized fuel prices in an effort to stem a widening economic crisis, though critics of the socialist leader quickly dismissed the moves as insufficient, according to Reuters.
The measures devalue the strongest official exchange rate by 37% to 10 bolivars per dollar from 6.3, and streamline the previous three-tiered system into a dual exchange rate mechanism. The weaker of the two rates will be a free float based on an existing system that currently sells dollars at around 200 bolivars, Maduro said, Reuters reports.
The price of premium gasoline will rise by 1,329%, but fuel is so heavily subsidized that fueling a small car will still cost about half the price of a soft drink, or about $0.23 based on the black market exchange rate.
Critics say the only solution to Venezuela's economic problems is to entirely dismantle the 13-year-old currency system created during the government of late socialist leader Hugo Chavez.