According to Reuters, Venezuelan small and medium-sized enterprises are facing a severe US dollar shortage crisis due to US sanctions and exclusion from the official foreign exchange allocation system, with more than half of surveyed companies stating that foreign exchange scarcity has seriously hindered production. It is reported that against the backdrop of a year-on-year 13% decline in foreign exchange auction volume at the beginning of the year, most US dollar quotas are monopolized by large multinational enterprises. To maintain production, numerous local pharmaceutical and chemical companies have been forced to turn to unofficial markets or use cryptocurrency for cross-border raw material procurement and settlement. This has consequently led to soaring local prices and driven inflation rates as high as 600%.