Venezuela sharply devalues its currency

CARACAS, Venezuela—Venezuela’s government announced on Friday that it is devaluing the country’s currency, a long-anticipated change expected to push up prices in the heavily import-reliant economy. Officials said the fixed exchange rate is changing from 4.30 bolivars to the dollar to 6.30 bolivars to the dollar. The devaluation had been widely expected by analysts in recent months, though experts had been unsure about whether the government would act while President Hugo Chavez remained out of sight in Cuba recovering from cancer surgery. It was the first devaluation to be announced by Chavez’s government since 2010, and it pushed up the price of the dollar against the bolivar by 46.5 percent.