And finally…Venezuelan wallets useless as nation’s shops start weighing cash

Inflation in the socialist country is expected to reach 720 per cent this year, with the largest bolívar bill now worth just five US cents on the black market.

Customers are now handing retailers wads of cash and stuffing huge volumes of notes into handbags, money belts, or backpacks, in scenes analysts have said are suggestive of “runaway” inflation.

Standard-size wallets in the country are now pretty much obsolete after plummeting global oil prices decimated Venezuela’s economy.

President Nicolás Maduro responded by fixing the official exchange rate and ordering banks to print more cash, which ultimately devalued the currency further, while goods prices soared.

The country of 30 million does not publish consumer-price data on a regular basis, but observers have said scenes on the streets of the capital, Caracas, are reminiscent of last century’s most chaotic cases of hyperinflation such as those in the Weimar Republic of Germany between the wars.

Oil makes up a staggering 95 per cent of Venezuela’s exports, and accounts for a quarter of the country’s economy, with oil-related revenues having historically supplied roughly half the government budget.

Such over-reliance on a single export notoriously depresses all other industries in a country, in a phenomenon known by economists as “Dutch Disease”.