Maduro sells 29 tons of gold to earn euros

According to an exclusive report from Reuters, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) is expected to sell in the coming days about 15 tons of gold from its reserves in the United Arab Emirates, in exchange for dollars in cash to finance its imports. movements.

This year, The issuing institute has already made a first shipment of about three tons of gold to this country on a charter flight from the company Solar Cargo who left on January 26, said the official source.

Bullion sales they are almost the only alternative that the government of Nicolás Maduro must obtain liquidity, the decline in oil revenues and the closure of almost all international financing options for US sanctions.

A third shipment of 11 tons of monetary gold is planned for February, the source added.

If materialized, the government in two months he will have sold 29 tons and reduced Venezuela's international reserves to a minimum of eight years, which are in bullion of maximum purity, according to data of the Central Bank.

The monetary authority did not respond to a request for information and the Embbady of the United Arab Emirates in Bogota also did not respond to an e-mail. The local company Solar Cargo hung up when the call was launched.

The US government has warned bankers, traders and global companies to avoid negotiating gold sales with the Maduro government, and has imposed sanctions on Venezuela's national oil company, PDVSA , to limit purchases and sales of crude in the United States.

US Senator Marco Rubio said Friday on Twitter at the US Embbady in the US that he had "information" on the visit of a supposed French citizen working for Noor Capital to Caracas in order to "repair the theft of several gold from Venezuela".

Cash to import

Funds raised through gold trading would be used for purchases of external inputs. BCV in the week informed the bank that it was to sell euros to companies of "strategic sectors" in order to import raw materials to produce; and these allocations in foreign currency will be in cash, added banking and industrial sources.

This is the first time that the Maduro government has been offering euros to industries outside the control system in place for nearly two decades. The measure comes when the government is struggling to import raw materials directly, as it has been doing since 2015 because of sanctions imposed by the United States.

Last year, the Central Bank exported to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates all of the non-monetary gold purchased since 2016 in mines that hand-make metal in the south of the country, have said two sources knowledgeable of these operations.

Between January and September, gold exports to Turkey reached 900 million, according to official Turkish data.

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