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(Bloomberg) Venezuela’s new economy minister , who has argued that inflation doesn’t exist “in real life,” said policies to be announced on Jan. 12 would seek to avoid sacrifices by ordinary people as the price the South American country receives for oil exports plunges to a 12-year low.
“Our goal is to see how we can respond to these external restrictions without making internal sacrifices,” Luis Salas, who President Nicolas Maduro put in control of the economy this week, said Friday in an interview on the Telesur network. “That’s going to take creativity.” The falling price of oil, which accounts for 95 percent of exports, has exacerbated shortages of everything from medicine to soap and placed the economy as the number one issue on voters’ minds as they handed Congress to the opposition for the first time in 16 years last month. No single measure can solve the economic problems, said Salas, who went on to signal that he opposes raising subsidized prices for household goods in order to boost supply.
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