The Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro declared this Wednesday that his regime deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics for its strategy against international sanctions for human rights violations in Venezuela.
“In the face of sanctions, what we did was stand up, stick our necks out, look for the best world advisers in economics, currency, finance, fiscal policies, productive policies, and today we can say that we deserve the Nobel Prize in Economics because we have pushed forward alone, with the Bolivarian Economic Agenda and the 18 engines, step by step”he stated in a speech broadcast by the state chain Venezuelan Television (VTV).
Venezuela has been in recession for eight years. But Maduro also affirmed at the beginning of the year, when presenting the balance of his annual management before the Chavista Parliament, that the country “has recovered the path of economic growth” after five years of persecution and financial blockade.
However, The basic food basket in Venezuela had a cost of 455 dollars in February, which means an increase of 61% compared to a year agoaccording to information released on Monday by the Cendas-FVM center, an independent entity that provides this data to the absence of official figures.
The National Institute of Statistics (INE) has not published the cost of the food basket since 2014, which, according to experts, is part of a “policy of opacity” by the agencies, which also do not publish other indicators such as economic activity and poverty.
According to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), in February 2021, an average family of five needed an average of 282 dollars to meet their minimum food needs through the basket. Namely, now, Venezuelans require 173 dollars more than a year ago to buy the same products, a figure that reflects the growing cost of living in foreign currency in the country, which until last December experienced hyperinflation that pulverized the value of the local currency, the Bolivar, and which opened the doors to an unofficial dollarization process that covers more than 50% of transactions, according to estimates by private firms. However, various economic experts maintain that the majority of Venezuelans do not have continuous and significant access to the currency.
“In Venezuela, prices also increase in dollars. Despite the fact that the exchange rate fell compared to January, the basket, ultimately, in dollars increased. The price marker, for a long time, is the dollar”, he explained to EFE the director of Cendas, the economist Oscar Meza, who stated that To cover the cost of food, the equivalent of 300 minimum wages was needed, which in February stood at 7 bolívares (1.5 dollars at the time) and which, as of this second half of March, goes to 130 bolívares (30 dollars), by order of Nicolás Maduro.
With information from EFE
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