Resist and win. Under these two premises we have designed the Recovery, Growth and Economic Prosperity Plan, after 100 days, we have the conviction that we are on the right track.
The US siege has become a framework that opens new flanks and demands for cunning to devise mechanisms that allow us to overcome difficulties for the benefit of the people.
The first 45 days of the Plan allowed us to verify that it is possible to return to the people theirlost everyday life: the normal circulation of the new banknotes stopped the mafias that had seized our physical currency; the minimum wage increase of 3,000% allowed the progressive recovery of the purchasing power of the workers; and the establishment of a new exchange rate for the US currency stopped the speculative rise of the criminal dollar.
In parallel, we assumed the public and private payrolls and we talked with the productive sectors, with the purpose of agreeing on the prices fromthe basic food basket, priority products of personal hygiene and medicines.
During the second part of the three-month period, the attack of internal and external factors intensified to impede the success of the program. The disregard of the prices agreed by the businessmen; the increase of the criminal dollar to push inflation artificially; and the imposition of new unilateral coercive measures by the US, insist on keeping our economy in a state of war. Two decades of struggles and in each one we have been victorious. They tried it by way of the coup and failed and used their political lackeys and they also failed. Now they play with the Venezuelan food dish and defeat will be their destiny. That conviction is based on the force that drives this political process: the people, an army of wills that deserve all recognition, because day by day, they overcome with the hope founded by the commander Hugo Chávez and the confidence in a government that commands obeying.
A few days before the end of 2018, we have made a colossal effort to guarantee the welfare of workers with a new increase of 60% on the minimum wage.
We continue an offensive with our international partners to consolidate investments in strategic sectors such as mining. We intent to present a plan to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to recover market prices as we move forwardto novel mechanisms that allow us to conduct business outside the financial fence imposed by Washington. In this effort, the Petro is the cornerstone. Thanks to this cryptoactive we offer the people a saving alternative.
Our goal is that by 2019 we will be able to reduce the deficit to zero and resume the path of growth that the economic war has bombarded. We are a country that resists because it believes, because we are hardened in battles, because the Bolivarian spirit surrounds us above all difficulties. And with that indomitable strength, we know we will defeat.
Simon Zerpa
Minister of the Popular Power for Economy and Finances of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela
