The third monetary reconversion came into effect in Venezuela: the bolivar has lost 14 zeros during the Chavista regime

This Friday the third monetary reconversion implemented in Venezuela by the Chavista dictatorship came into effect. The “digital bolivar” will be released with six zeros less than its latest version, enabled in 2018.

Since 2007, when the Then President Hugo Chávez, announced the first revision of the monetary cone a total of 14 zeros have been eliminated from the Venezuelan bolivar , in an attempt to revive the value of the paper that after each change has reached to pay less things.

Until September 30 one million bolivars, about 25 cents, were insufficient to buy a loaf of bread . That amount, which now becomes a bolivar, in turn represents 100 billion bolivars in 2007, a clear reflection of the incredible erosion in its value.

The increasingly undervalued bolivar and the high rate of transactions carried out in dollars has turned the local currency into a simple piece of paper that children use in bundles to play with.

The scene takes place on a street in Puerto Concha, a hot town in the western state of Zulia, on the border with Colombia, where for many the bolívar is history.

The banknotes are used to make crowns and other figures, In addition to being used by children, who lie on the floor to play entertaining.

“If you put a hundred, you you win a hundred ”, explains a girl who coordinates the game of Ajiley, a very popular card game in Venezuela to which the little ones have given a creative twist by trading the prizes with this s useless banknotes, which are stored in a cardboard box in the shape of a guitar, with the back painted in the national colors.

The bolivar has depreciated 72.54% so far 2021 and this Friday six zeros are removed.

But in Puerto Concha the national currency matters little or nothing. In recent years they have become more familiar with the Colombian pesos, that they use every day.

“Here the bolivar has already gone down in history” , remarks Jonatan Morán, 32, a farm worker, from the counter of a warehouse full of Colombian products, cheaper than local ones.

“I don’t even know the new bolivar that came out, nor would I want to know it. What for? ”, He asks, bluntly, in dialogue with the AFP .

There are inhabitants of the town who remember that before the reconversion decreed by the dictator Nicolás Maduro in 2018, the second in the Chavista era, many went out with buckets full of bills to do grocery shopping.

THE DOLLARIZATION

With this new monetary “restatement”, “Venezuela becomes the Latin American country that has eliminated more zeros from its currency ”, points out the economist José Manuel Puente, convinced that in a few months the cycle will repeat itself and the new bolivar will once again lag behind.

This instability expanded the use of the Colombian peso in the border states, while the country is experiencing a de facto dollarization, that although it contradicts the “anti-Yankee narrative” of Chavismo, Puente points out, it is seen as an “escape valve” in the face of an economy with eight years of recession and four of hyperinflation.

Being a neighboring region of Colombia, many tend to change dollars to pesos in Puerto Concha, as it facilitates retail purchases, something that does not happen. re with the greenback, since informal dollarization limits the flow of low-denomination banknotes and complicates operations.

“Right now the peso is more beneficial than the bolivar, because the bolivar does not give us “, he says María Martínez, a 38-year-old lottery vendor, who hides her face with a sweater to protect herself from the sun.

The use of the bolivar has It has been practically restricted to operations with debit cards, due to a chronic shortage of cash, necessary for the main activities in the town: fishing, livestock and banana planting.

There are no figures for the amount of Colombian pesos that circulate in the Venezuelan economy. On the other hand, estimates from the private sector consider that in the country transactions in dollars comprise 70% of operations.

(With information from AFP)

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