Venezuela’s bolivar used for handbags

CUCUTA, Colombia —— Venezuela’s currency has become virtually worthless, making it better to turn colorful bolivar bills into a purse than to spend on a purse — or anything else.

So that’s what Alvaro Rivera and other artisans in one Colombian town along the Venezuelan border are doing — using the once mighty bolivar as raw material to make handbags, bird sculptures and other curios.

The largest handbag Rivera sells on the streets of Cucuta is painstakingly woven from 1,000 individual bills, totaling 100,000 bolivares. The value of that cash at money exchange houses in Cucuta is 17 cents. The bag, on the other hand, sells for $13.

“The price of the work has nothing to do with how many bills I use,” Rivera said. “What I’m selling is the art.”

The Central Bank has stopped publishing most economic data, but Venezuela’s congress says annual inflation hit 24,600 percent in May.

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has increased the minimum wage three times this year alone. Now the basic monthly wage is 1 million bolivares. At the official exchange rate, which few people have access to, that salary is equivalent to $13. But on the black market, where most people are forced to exchange their money, it’s less than $2.

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