Those measures — revealed in a speech to the nation late Friday — include a massive minimum wage hike, the fifth so far this year. 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. In turn, the minimum wage will be fixed at half a petro (1,800 sovereign bolivars), starting Monday. As it stands, the monthly minimum wage — devastated by inflation and the aggressive devaluation of the bolivar — is still not enough to buy a kilo of meat. The fiscal deficit is almost 20 percent of GDP while Venezuela struggles with an external debt of $150 billion.

Source: The Guardian August 18, 2018 19:07 UTC