Tag Archives: venezuela

Venezuelan government raises minimum wage to ‘kick-start the year’.

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President Nicolas Maduro has raised the minimum wage of Venezuelan workers by 50 percent — the fifth of such raise since February 2016.

Announcing the raise via state TV on Sunday, Maduro said it is “fair and necessary… to continue to protect jobs, stability, the right to work, to an income and to pensions”.

“To start the year, I have decided to raise salaries and pensions. In times of economic war and mafia attacks … we must protect employment and workers’ income,” said the socialist president.

“As the president of the republic, I am promoting dialogue, I am facilitating dialogue, I am married to [the idea of] national dialogue,” he added, signalling his readiness to dialogue with critics of his government.

Following the hike, minimum wage is expected to be 40,683 bolivars (£49, $60, N18,300) at the official exchange rate.

The raise is coming at a time when the International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that the country’s inflation would hit four digits, to rise as much as 1,600 percent in 2017.

The opposition party says Maduro’s “utter management” of the economy has seen inflation skyrocket to over 500 percent in 2016, and the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) shrink by 12 percent.

In 2015, the country’s inflation hit 181 percent but the government has since stopped releasing inflation and GDP figures.

Venezuela, with one of the world’s largest oil reserves, was heavily-hit by the crash in crude oil prices.

Nicolas Maduro holds Vatican-backed talks in Venezuela.

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Members of Venezuela’s opposition have met the government for talks as President Nicolas Maduro seeks to fend off calls for his removal.

Maduro launched the talks on Sunday night at a museum in western Caracas, held in the presence of mediators from the Vatican and former presidents of Spain, Panama and the Dominican Republic.

Some of Maduro’s rivals fear they could be a stalling tactic designed to ease pressure on the unpopular socialist leader, who many Venezuelans blame for triple-digit inflation and widespread food and medicine shortages.

Fifteen parties belonging to the Democratic Unity opposition alliance boycotted the talks, saying they were not prepared to sit across from the government until it released several jailed opposition activists and reversed its decision to cancel a constitutionally allowed recall referendum against Maduro.

“For an eventual dialogue to take place it has to be very clear from the outset that the aim is agreeing on the terms of a democratic transition in the remainder of 2016,” the parties said in a statement.

‘Very positive’

Archbishop Claudio Maria Celli, the Vatican’s envoy to the talks, praised the dialogue as something “very positive”.

He urged both sides to make concessions in order for the talks not to falter like the previous attempts.

“At the start of this journey, I ask you in the name of Pope Francis that each side agrees to some concrete gestures to give credibility to this process,” said Celli, who is president of the pope’s council for social communications.

“The country is waiting for authentic signals to comprehend that dialogue is a reality.”

Last week the opposition alliance rallied tens of thousands of supporters across the country and another protest has been called for Thursday for which the opposition is pledging to march to the presidential palace.

Government’s critics have not been allowed to get close to the palace since the 2002 coup that briefly toppled President Hugo Chavez, the late leader who installed the socialist administration.

In recent weeks the opposition has been stepping up its campaign seeking to force Maduro from office.

The opposition-controlled congress, meanwhile, has begun a “political trial” against Maduro accusing him of neglecting his duties, though it is a largely symbolic gesture since the body does not have the power to remove a president under Venezuela’s constitution.

Although he has threatened to arrest legislators if they go ahead with the trial, Maduro said on on Sunday night that he has an “absolute commitment” to holding a dialogue with the opposition.

“We’re giving a chance to disarm the hatred, the intolerance, and open the door to love among the Venezuelans,” he said in televised remarks from the museum.

Previous attempts have been made at having a dialogue between the opposition and the government, such as talks that followed a wave of deadly unrest in 2014.

Those sessions calmed the streets but failed to produce any meaningful progress on key issues dividing Venezuelans.

Crude Oil Slips As Saudi, Venezuela Meeting Yields Little

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Crude oil prices eased in thin trade on Monday as a meeting between OPEC producers, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela showed little indication that steps would be taken to boost prices.

 

Global benchmark Brent futures LCOc1 were down 8 cents at $34.98 while U.S. crude futures CLc1 fell by 23 cents to $30.66.

Both contracts firmed slightly earlier in the session on Monday in see-saw trade on low volumes as many Asian markets were on holiday for the Lunar New Year.

 

Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister, Ali al-Naimi, discussed cooperation between members of OPEC and other oil producers to stabilise the global oil market on Sunday, but there was no sign any agreement had been reached.

 

“It was a successful meeting and (conducted) in a positive atmosphere,” Naimi was quoted as saying.

 

Venezuela’s Oil Minister, Eulogio Del Pino, who is on a tour of oil producers to lobby for action to prop up prices, said his meeting with Naimi was “productive”.

 

“The picture is neither clear nor harmonious,” PVM Oil Associates analyst David Hufton, said in a note on Monday. The market is likely to remain highly volatile and dangerous.  Unless there is some pretty bullish news in the next few days, the contracts are likely to erode value and head south,” Hufton warned.

 

The market is also eyeing U.S. Federal Reserve Chair, Janet Yellen’s testimony to lawmakers on Wednesday along with U.S. crude inventory data from the Energy Information Administration on the same day.

 

“We are on hold, waiting for that with a nervous tone,” said Ric Spooner, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in Sydney.

 

The International Energy Agency and OPEC are also due to release their monthly reports on Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively.

 

 

(Reuters/NAN)