US dollar scarcity in Venezuela forces small firms to raise prices, turn to crypto

From channelnewsasia.com

In central Venezuela, the owner of a mid-size pharmaceutical factory scrambles to obtain dollars to import chemicals and other ingredients for his headache and fever remedies. But he, like many other Venezuelan business owners, is frequently unsuccessful. The hurdles include an official system for allocating U.S. currency that disfavors small and medium companies and an ongoing shortage of dollars, despite government promises of improvement. "You don’t know at what cost you’ll be able to restock your goods because you don’t know when you’ll be able to buy foreign currency or at what exchange rate," the ... (full story)