From January 1 Venezuela will have a single exchange rate for the US dollar, Venezuelan Finance Minister Jorge Giordani said Thursday. It will now take 4.30 Venezuelan bolivars to buy a dollar, Giordani said on the state-run VTV network. The measure eliminates an earlier exchange rate of 2.6 bolivars per dollar for imports of health products, food, machinery, and most government imports. As the year closed Venezuela was the only country in Latin America in an recession.