CARACAS: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro, beset by street protests, has announced plans to relax restrictions on the public's access to foreign currency.
The new measures, which Maduro discussed in a televised speech late Wednesday, were to be explained in greater detail Thursday by senior officials of his adminstration.
Maduro said the new system will allow "private citizens to buy and sell foreign currencies among themselves, through exchange offices operating under the supervision of the Central Bank."
Under the arrangement, the central bank and the state-run oil giant Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA) would act as sellers in the transactions.
The move comes as Maduro confronts the biggest crisis of his young presidency -- two weeks of intensifying street protests.
The reforms appeared aimed at undercutting a flourishing black market, where the dollar fetches up to 13 times the official rate of 6.3 bolivars.
"We want to break the arm of the perverse phantom dollar system, the so-called parallel" economy, said Maduro, who succeeded the late Hugo Chavez, who died last year of cancer.
The announcement comes with Venezuela's economy on the ropes, with a 56 percent inflation rate and widespread shortages of food and other basic necessities.
Maduro, who was elected by a razor-thin margin in April last year, has been grappling with angry student protests that have led to at least four deaths.
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