Venezuela ready to address fuel prices: “piece of candy cannot cost more than a liter of gasoline”

[brooklynite]

Mercopress:

Gasoline is so heavily subsidized in Venezuela that one US cent buys about five gallons, costing the government as much as 12 dollars billion annually and spurring a lucrative business in smuggling fuel across the border to neighboring Colombia.

The announcement follows the release by the Venezuelan Central bank that the inflation rate reached 68.5% in 2014, the highest in Latin America, with consumer prices rising 5.3% in the month of December.

...snip...

Finance minister Marco Torres said in an interview broadcast that his government would be announcing a change of policy soon on gasoline, thus signaling Venezuela is moving ahead with a long-awaited hike in the world’s cheapest fuel.

Maduro has suggested a fuel price hike as a means of improving state finances amid a tumble in crude prices, but has repeatedly balked at doing so because many Venezuelans view cheap fuel as a birthright.

So private businesses can't raise prices on goods, but the Government can raise prices on fuel?

[COLGATE4]

1. Fasten your seat belts. Touching gas prices has been the

third rail of Venezuelan politics. Look for serious outbreaks, demonstrations and potentially violence if they do it.

[Taitertots]

2. Who is at the wheel?

"Inflation is so high that we need to raise prices"