Venezuela moved to shore up its crumbling economy on Monday, devaluing its currency and preparing to raise the minimum wage by more than 3,000% in what the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro, declared a visionary bid to tame rampant hyperinflation.

More than 500,000 Venezuelans have fled overseas this year amid chronic shortages of food and medicine, soaring crime and warnings from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that inflation could hit 1m% this year.

But on Friday Maduro unveiled a dramatic raft of measures designed to end a depression he blames on an “economic war” being waged by imperialist foes of the Bolivarian revolution he inherited after Hugo Chávez’s 2013 death.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.theguardian.com