Venezuela will announce a change of policy soon on gasoline, the finance minister said in an interview broadcast on Friday, signalling the Opec nation is moving ahead with along-awaited hike in the world's cheapest fuel. Gasoline is so heavily subsidised in Venezuela that one US cent buys about 5 gallons, costing the government as much as $12 billion annually and spurring a lucrative business in smuggling fuel across the border to neighbouring Colombia.
President Nicolas Maduro has suggested a fuel price hike as a means of improving state finances amid a tumble in crude prices, but has repeatedly balked at doing so because many Venezuelans view cheap fuel as a birthright.