Venezuela’s heavily subsidised domestic fuel prices should rise to international levels to avoid billions of dollars in annual losses as a result of smuggling, Nicolás Maduro has said in a televised address.

“Gasoline must be sold at an international price to stop smuggling to Colombia and the Caribbean,” the president said.

Like most oil-producing countries, Venezuela has for decades subsidised fuel as a benefit to consumers. But its fuel prices have remained nearly flat for years despite hyperinflation that the International Monetary Fund has projected would reach 1 million per cent this year.

That means that for the price of a cup of coffee, a driver can fill the tank of a small SUV nearly 9,000 times. Recently, the average price of a coffee with milk was 2.2m bolivars, or about 50 cents, local media has reported.

Smugglers do brisk business reselling fuel in neighbouring countries.

Maduro said the government would still provide direct subsidies to citizens holding the “fatherland card”, a state-issued identification card that the government uses to provide bonuses and track use of social services.

He said the subsidy was only available to those who registered their cars in a vehicle census being conducted by the state.

On Friday, the UN said that more than half a million Venezuelans had crossed into Ecuador this year as part of one of the largest mass migrations in Latin American history.

About 547,000 citizens have entered Ecuador since January – mostly through its northern border with Colombia – to escape rampant crime and political violence, a collapsing economy and severe shortages of food and medicines.

More than 1 million Venezuelans have also crossed into Colombia since the exodus began in 2015. Others have fanned out across Latin American and Caribbean nations including Mexico, the Dominican Republic and Trindad and Tobago. Tens of thousands have hiked into Brazil down a remote Amazon road known as the Hunger Highway.