Caracas: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said his government would extend the use of 100-bolivar notes to January 20, after a plan to withdraw those bills from the economy sparked nationwide protests and widespread looting.
Maduro in December said the notes, the highest denomination in the inflation-plagued country, would be withdrawn to prevent smugglers and “mafias” from trafficking the bills across the border to neighboring Colombia.
He had already postponed the measure to Jan 2. from mid-December after angry citizens, unable to make purchases and worried they would lose their cash holdings, staged protests that led to hundreds of arrests.
Venezuela suffers from triple-digit inflation as a result of low oil prices and an unraveling socialist economy, which has left basic purchases, such as a few days’ worth of groceries, requiring sacks of cash. Many Venezuelans shop with debit cards to avoid the hassle of bills, but point-of-sale networks have been increasingly strained and such services are often unavailable.
