Economists argue that the increase in currency supply has a limited impact due to structural flaws that encourage arbitrage.
The distortions in the Venezuelan currency market are still holding strong. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic
The firm Ecoanalítica warns that the exchange policy under Delcy Rodríguez has 'limited' effectiveness, due to the insistence on maintaining an 'artificially low' official exchange rate, creating incentives for arbitrage and flipping in the informal market.
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The consulting firm highlights the “significant financial effort of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), whose interventions have accumulated approximately USD 5.55 billion so far this year and have exceeded USD 1 billion per month since March.”
However, he argues that "the mechanism loses effectiveness because official foreign currency is placed at an artificially low rate," consequently generating an exchange rate gap - the difference between the official and parallel rates - "which had managed to reduce to 31.4% in April," but "resumed an upward trajectory and exceeded 36% again in June."
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Alejandro Grisanti, director of Ecoanalítica, stated that the government would have approximately $2.5 billion available to intervene in the foreign exchange market in the coming days. “With these amounts, there should be no doubt that there is sufficient capacity to keep exchange rates in the alternative markets under control,” he indicated.
However, Grisanti emphasizes that “the problem remains something else: market segmentation. As long as the financial system cannot freely sell these currencies to the ‘highest bidder,’ significant distortions will persist, uncertainty will remain high, and the impact of these interventions on the exchange rate will be considerably less than what could be achieved in a more unified and deeper market.”
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The first official exchange rate of 2026 was 301.37 bolivars per dollar. Today it has risen to 617.63 bolivars. A devaluation of 105% in six months.
In Venezuela, three exchange rates operate: the one published by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), which sets prices in formal businesses; another used by the authorities in the "intervention" mechanism, distributing foreign currency to banks for sale to companies and, to a lesser extent, to individuals; and the parallel or black market rate, which ultimately impacts the entire economy.
The great divide
Luis Vicente León, president of the firm Datanálisis, agrees with Grisanti. “The flow of foreign currency is growing steadily, but the gap is not narrowing proportionally. The reason is structural: as long as this difference exists between the official exchange rate and the free market rate, the arbitrage incentive persists (buying low to sell high) and the demand for official foreign currency remains excessive,” he explains.
In Venezuela, three exchange rates operate: the one published by the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), which sets prices in formal businesses; another used by the authorities in the "intervention" mechanism, distributing foreign currency to banks for sale to companies and, to a lesser extent, to individuals; and the parallel or black market rate, which ultimately impacts the entire economy.