Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Sunday signed a bill into law to curb illegal exchange of U.S. dollars at the parallel market in the country, Xinhua reported.
Chavez said strong measures would be applied to combat the speculation in the dollar exchange market.
"The prices established in the illegal market of exchanges is used as an excuse to speculate with the unmeasured price increase of products and services," Chavez said during his Sunday program "Hello, President."
He also expressed satisfaction over investigations done by the police and military intelligence agencies to seek speculators.
The new law, which was approved by the National Assembly Thursday, gives the central bank control of all hard currency deals and authority to oversee any deals involving U.S. dollars.
Since January, the speculation in the foreign currency exchange market has contributed to the sharp increase of consumer prices in Venezuela.