A market where banknotes abound and the supply of products also

Maracaibo.- In Venezuela, which pays a cash product gets it at a lower price and this situation can be clearly seen in the popular market of Las Pulgas in the western city of Maracaibo where there has posters announcing "offers" conditioned to the trance with bills.

According to this formula, every day, hundreds of informal traders leave their dilapidated position in the hot capital of the state of Zulia (on the border of Colombia) to offer rare products all over the country and unmatched prices.

The one who for the first time crosses these crowded little streets can imagine that he has arrived at the ideal place where there is no shortage and in which he will finally pay a little more money in a country whose inflation will close the year by 1 000 000%, according to forecasts of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

But the dream will end when he understands that "the offers" only apply to the payment with tickets, a paper that circulates in lots on the market and that does not not having the customer has to pay a price up to 10 times higher

A Venezuelan who earns a minimum wage ($ 30 or $ 1.8 depending on legal changes) could leave Las Pulgas with three pounds of beef and a pound of detergent; Not bad for the national crisis in which monthly incomes do not even reach the purchase of a coffee package in most stores.

Now, the materialization of this scenario is to comply with the inevitable obligation to deliver banknotes, absent in banking institutions and resold in the 24 federal entities of the country, with particular rage in border regions like Zulia, where pay up to 1,000% of its nominal value .

If there is no cash payment, products such as precooked corn flour, the most requested item in the country that consumes hundreds of thousands of packages per day, will be quoted at 3.7 million bolivars (22 or 1, 3 dollars) and not in its attractive "price of the chip" which is 10 times lower.

These rules – as well as all the dynamics of supply and demand that prevail in the place – are known to most pbadersby who circulate daily around the place, a mbad that moves to a pace as dizzying as

The origin of the products that abound in Las Pulgas and which disappeared years ago from supermarkets, is for some of them the best kept secret of merchants, although others know it. justify with the existence of imported items from the nearby Colombian town of Maicao.

The two reasons are insufficient in relation to the absurd, because for example two rolls of toilet paper manufactured in Venezuela whose maximum price is 3,800,000 bolivars ($ 22 or $ 1.3) can be achieved by paying 690,000 bolivars in cash, a sixth. Part of its value, has reviewed the writing of Hector Pereira, Efe agency

Sellers – women, men, elderly and miners, mostly indigenous to the group Wayúu – give explanations on differences in price and prefer to continue to attract customers to screaming, while aerating their stores to scare the army of flies that guard the entire market.

In addition to processed foods and meats, these peddlers who work every day around Maracaibo Lake offer fruits, vegetables, liqueurs, cheeses, fish, medicines and personal hygiene products. grooming.

For the inhabitants of Zulia, the richest and most inhabited state of Venezuela that this week has been declared emergency by Parliament due to the deterioration of all public services, Las Pulgas looks like a quick fix to the crisis. features that surround it.

The Nicolás Maduro government has repeatedly denounced that the "mafias" are extracting Venezuelan paper money to affect the economy and, in response, will launch a new family of banknotes with more tailored cuts to the economy. 39; inflation.

In addition, the ruling Chavismo will remove five zeros from the currency as of August 20 when a controversial currency conversion will take effect.