Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro celebrated the country’s exit from hyperinflation after four years, and projected economic growth of 4% in 2021.
(Venezuela’s path to get out of hyperinflation after 3 years).
In his accountability before Parliament, which lasted more than three hours this Saturday, Maduro presented the “2022 as the year of emergence”, in the midst of the greatest economic crisis in its modern history, with at least seven years of recession.
Inflation in 2021 stood at 686%, according to the Central Bank (BCV), with monthly records below 50%, the traditional threshold established for a country to overcome hyperinflation.
“This makes us optimistic that we have overcome the burdens of hyperinflation and in power, with a lot of discipline, work, effort, with a lot of intelligence, audacity and wisdom, in 2022 we will embark on a path to flatten and defeat high inflation”Maduro said.
The president also assured that 2021 was the first year of recovery and “growth” of the country, that until 2020 added seven years in recession. The BCV has not published GDP data since the first quarter of 2019, but the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that 2020 closed at -20%.
(According to Maduro, Venezuela abandoned ‘the state of hyperinflation.’)
The agency indicated that 2021 closed at -5% and calculated that this year will also end in red (-3%). “An annual growth (in) 2021 is projected, experts will say in their studies, greater than 4%”, affirmed the president, who has also spoken of a “real economy” growth of 7% in the third quarter, without giving details of the indicator.
The Ecoanalítica consultancy -which calculated that the Venezuelan economy fell 80% between 2013 and 2020- projected an economic growth of 3% for 2021.
“IMPORTANT MILESTONE”
Maduro spoke of “growth” after what he has called an “economic war”, which he has denounced since 2015 against his government, and a “blockade” by the United States, referring to Washington’s sanctions policy to pressure its downfall, which includes an oil embargo.
“We are going to expand the growth of entrepreneurship,” Held.
Maduro reiterated that during 2021 Venezuela achieved “an important milestone in reaching a (oil) production of one million barrels per day” (bd) and remarked that the goal for this year is 2 million, a figure still below the 3.2 reached by the industry more than 10 years ago.
The president promised a year ago to bring the production of the former oil power to 1.5 million bpd, which fell in July 2020 to less than 400,000 bpd, at levels of the 1930s and 1940s.
Maduro, who defends a “diversified economy” that does not depend on hydrocarbons, bet on raising the state-owned Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), plagued, according to experts, by corruption, erratic decisions, lack of maintenance, in addition to US sanctions.
He also indicated that as a result of economic growth, Venezuela reduced general poverty by 1 point to 17.7% in 2021, from 18.4% the year before.
He said that extreme poverty remained at 4.1% and promised to eradicate it by 2025.
According to the IMF, Venezuela’s GDP per capita fell to $1,541, below Haiti’s.
Maduro’s poverty data also contradicts the data from a prestigious study by the Andrés Bello Catholic University (UCAB), which placed poverty at more than 94.5% and extreme poverty at 76.6%.
AFP
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