New time zone for South America

In an unusual move, a new time zone will take effect in South America from the 1st of May. As part of a measure to battle an energy crisis in Venezuela, the president also gave the public sector every Friday off until at least June 6th – to save electricity.

In addition, the entire country will change timezone from UTC -4h30 to UTC-4 from 01MAY, to ensure more daylight in the evening when energy consumption peaks.

At SVMI/Simon Bolivar, Primary radar has been off the air since 04APR – and remains out of service until the end of May – it’s unclear if this is electricity related.

If operating to Venezuela after 01MAY, local time will therefore be 4 hours behind UTC.

2 Comments

Mark Zee says:

2 May, 2016 at 10:49 pm

Thanks Guillermo, you’re right – we’ve updated the article.

Guillermo kar says:

20 April, 2016 at 7:07 am

The time change is UTC -4 and not UTC -5 as mentioned here, please research and correct the information you are distributing.