The Venezuelan central bank has released new data showing just how far the nation’s economy has disintegrated in recent years.
MercoPress reports this week (in text that is rather loosely translated from Spanish):
After several years, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) published results of gross domestic product (GDP) until the third quarter of 2018, with which officially confirms the recession that is experienced in the oil country. With the data it is known then that between the third quarter of 2013 to September of last year the economy lost 52.3%. President Nicolás Maduro is on power since 2014.
The BCV report draws a demolished economy. According to the institution, the construction sector fell by 95% between the third quarter of 2013 and the third quarter of 2018, the manufacturing sector by 76%, trade by 79% and financial institutions by 79%. According to the data released on Tuesday, towards the end of 2018 the collapse accelerated.
The official figures of the BCV also confirm the magnitude of the Venezuelan economic recession that has been recorded since the arrival of Nicolás Maduro to the presidency of the country. According to the data, after a slight growth of 1.3% in 2013, as of 2014, the deterioration of the economy begins with a decrease of 3.9%; as well as a fall of 6.2% in 2015.
Among the most striking of the statistics offered by the central bank was 2018’s inflation rate of 130,060.2%.
The data release was mandated by the International Monetary Fund which threatened to sanction Venezuela with limitations on its Special Drawing Rights if it did not report updated macroeconomic data.
Given the acceleration of economic decline, it looks like the IMF may need to revise its most recent estimates of Venezuela’s economic growth which can be seen in per capita GDP numbers. Here are the IMF’s country-by-country estimates of GDP per capita, published using extrapolations from older Venezuelan data:
Source: International Monetary Fund.
Note the downward trend in Venezuelan GDP (the bottom dark blue line.) It now appears likely Venezuela’s growth will need to be adjusted downward.
While the magnitude of the economic decline is remarkable, Venezuela’s decline in relation to other South American nations is, by now, a well established trend.
While much of the continent has been undergoing significant growth over the past twenty years — especially in Peru, Uruguay, and Colombia — Venezuela has been moving in the opposite direction. Indeed, according to the estimates published before the release of the Venezuelan central bank’s new data, the nation’s per capita GDP declined 25 percent from 2008 to 2018.
The relative change has been less dramatic in more recent time frames. Brazil’s growth dropped to zero between 2013 and 2018, and Argentina’s growth turned negative. Both nations are notable for embracing highs-pending, high-inflation policies over the past decade. It remains to be seen if Brazil’s and Argentina’s more recent turns toward allegedly pro-market regimes can repair the damage.
Meanwhile, Venezuela has been notable for adopting an especially virulent type of socialism, even when compared to other leftist regimes, such as Bolivia and Ecuador. While Morales in Bolivia and Correa in Ecuador tended to be more pragmatic in their professed “socialism,” The Chavista regime in Venezuela has doubled down on enforced “equality” through widespread expropriations and persecution of the productive middle classes.
The results have been disastrous indeed.
