Economic policy of the Nicolás Maduro administration

Cuba's cash-strapped government has announced that fuel prices will soar by more than 500 percent beginning Feb. 1, part of a series of economic measures aimed at reducing the deficit.

Inflation in Venezuela in 2018 was 130 060 percent. The central bank said after four years of silence.

Economic data are, in principle, strictly kept secret from the authoritarian regime of Nicolas Maduro. The country's economy shrunk by 19.2% in the first nine months of 2018 on an annual basis, as private consumption has fallen sharply and inflation has risen.

Much of Venezuela remained engulfed by darkness into early March 8 amid one of the largest power outages in years, a problem the government of President Nicolas Maduro blamed on "sabotage" at a hydroelectric dam that provides much of the country's power.

Abu Dhabi investment firm Noor Capital said on Friday that it bought 3 tonnes of gold on Jan. 21 from Venezuela's central bank, at a time when President Nicolas Maduro is seeking to keep his crisis-stricken government solvent, reported Reuters. 

President Nicolas Maduro said Monday that some of the world's cheapest gasoline that Venezuelan drivers enjoy will soon be sold at world market prices to combat rampant smuggling.

Venezuela will remove five zeroes from the bolivar currency rather than the three zeroes originally planned, President Nicolas Maduro said on July 25, in an effort to keep up with inflation projected to reach 1 million percent this year.

Venezuela formally launched its new oil-backed cryptocurrency on Tuesday in an unconventional bid to haul itself out of a deepening economic crisis, reported AFP.

The leftist Caracas government put 38.4 million units of the world's first state-backed digital currency, the Petro, on private pre-sale from the early hours.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced a 40 percent increase to the minimum wage as of January, a move that will foment what many economists already consider hyperinflation in the oil-rich but crisis-stricken nation.

Venezuela is creating a digital currency to combat a financial blockade by the United States, President Nicolas Maduro announced on Dec. 3.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) gave a bleak forecast of the Venezuelan economy. According to fund experts, in the next 2018, inflation in Venezuela could reach 2300%.