Venezuela receives more new banknotes

CARACAS: Venezuela took delivery of its third load of new, bigger denomination banknotes, its central bank said, but there was no sign of them in circulation yet despite official promises and mounting public anxiety.

“Seven hundred and ten crates of 500-bolivar notes have just arrived from Stockholm,” the bank’s vice-president, Jose Khan, announced on state television.

The new banknotes are each worth the equivalent of 15 US cents at the highest official exchange rate.

They and other new denominations ranging up to 20,000 bolivares are being brought in by President Nicolas Maduro to replace 100-bolivar notes he wants to scrap, claiming they were being used by “mafias” along the border.

But citizens in the street complained they had not seen any of the new money, despite Maduro’s promise that it would be available from December 15.

“Nothing at all. Still haven’t seen them,” a fast-food street vendor, Nicolas Flores, 40, said in Caracas.

Maduro’s announcement that the 100-bolivar notes would suddenly no longer be legal tender provoked long lines of people trying to change them, and looting and rioting in some areas, resulting in four deaths.

Following the unrest, the president extended use of the 100-bolivar paper until January 2. The 100-bolivar bills represent more than three-quarters of the money being used in Venezuela, according to the website Prodavinci. — AFP