President Nicolas Maduro said on Friday that Venezuela had signed over $5.5 billion in mining deals with companies including Canada's Barrick Gold Corp and China's Shandong Gold. The deals are part of plan to ease the Opec nation's grave economic crisis that has caused food shortages and supermarket riots. "Today we are signing investments and letters of commitment for projects for over $5.5 billion," said Maduro in a televised meeting with foreign mining executives.