According to figures from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Venezuela in 2021 will have the worst record of the American continent with a contraction of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 10%, which is on top of the 30% drop in GDP in 2020 and a forecast in 2022 of another drop of 5%

This continuous decline in GDP began in 2013, under the government of Nicolás Maduro, although various analysts locate the origins of the crisis in the aftermath of the government of Hugo Chávez.

"This IMF report collects a series of unthinkable data until a few years ago : Venezuela already surpasses Haiti in the statistical indicator of poverty the most used by experts in the world", explains Venezuelan journalist Omar Lugo, director of El Estímulo, a news and analysis portal

"This is the first time that Haiti has not occupied the place of the poorest country on the American continent, in the indexes of specialized international organizations.

This is something difficult to assimilate when we talk about Venezuela, a world-class oil-exporting country, which until a few decades ago was the richest country in Latin America and was a pole to attract migrants from the rest of the hemisphere and from Europe, ”explains Lugo.

Logo points out "[…] although the Chavism propaganda apparatus insists on linking the country's economic bankruptcy to US sanctions, in reality the Venezuelan economy had already been in free fall since 2013, long before Washington imposed in 2019 the first restriction on the oil trade of the Venezuelan state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela."

Note that Venezuela's hyperinflation is poised to be among the longest in modern economic history. The IMF assures that last year the price increase was 2355% and that this year it will practically double to 5500%.

SL/ HaitiLibre