WASHINGTON – The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has officially received data on Venezuela’s economy for the first time in more than a decade.
“We are reviewing the data that we have received from the authorities in Venezuela,” the spokesperson for the financial institution, Gerry Rice, announced in Washington on Thursday.
The announcement comes a month after the spokesperson confirmed that the first formal contacts had been made in years with the Venezuelan government regarding the latter’s refusal to provide him with data on its economy.
Venezuela has not been subject to IMF analysis for more than a decade, and Rice did not specify what data it is about. What he did say is that the IMF will determine in the coming weeks if Venezuela has fulfilled its obligation to deliver data with them.
The financial institution issued in May a “declaration of censure” against the Government of Nicolás Maduro for not providing data on economic developments. This will remain valid at least until the determination that Rice spoke of.
Venezuela’s economy is expected to fall by 18% in 2018, according to IMF forecasts In that corrective, the IMF warned Venezuela that providing adequate data is the “first step” to identify possible solutions to the serious economic situation that goes through.
The IMF has described Venezuela as “one of the greatest economic crises in the modern economy.”
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In October it forecast that the country will close this year with inflation of 1.37 million percent, something that has seldom been seen in recent history and that would be comparable to the situation in Germany in 1923 or Zimbabwe in 2008. The collapse economic this year will be 18%, the third consecutive two-digit, according to the Fund.
Venezuela is the country with one of the largest proven reserves of heavy oil in the world, but the great dependence of the local economy on the price of oil and government policy in recent years have plunged it into the worst economic crisis in its history. This has ended up becoming a humanitarian crisis.–MercoPress
