Monday, August 29, 2022

Venezuela’s GDP will grow by an incredible 10% in 2022

 Venezuela’s GDP will grow by an incredible 10% in 2022

This is the biggest and most pleasant surprise in the 23 August report of Economic Commission for Latin America and Caribbean (ECLAC).

 

Venezuela’s growth rate will be the highest in the whole of Latin America in 2022. 

 

This is the first time that the country is seeing a positive GDP growth since 2014. In the period 2014 to 2021, the GDP had shrunk every year consecutively. The GDP contraction was 30% in 2020.

 

The second surprise is the news that Venezuela’s inflation will come down to 157% from four to six digits in recent years. In 2018, the inflation was 130060%.

 

The Ukrainian crisis has come as a saviour for Venezuela. The US has loosened the sanctions on Venezuela since the Americans want Venezuela to produce and export more oil to make up for the loss of oil in the global market due to their sanctions on Russia.




 

The Maduro government can now feel safer since the US attempts of regime change in Venezuela have completely failed. The US and its allies have quietly ditched Juan Guaido, whom they had propped up as the interim president of Venezuela, derecognizing Maduro as President. Some Latin American countries (Peru, Argentina and Colombia) under centre-right governments had gone along with the American charade. But the new left-wing governments in these countries have now recognised Maduro as president. The new leftist President of Colombia has given up the role of the country as the front line for the destabilization of Venezuela by the US. 

 

So Venezuela has clearly come out of the abyss. My Venezuelan amigos can look forward to better times in the coming years. I hope that the government of President Maduro will take advantage of these positive developments to move the country towards a proper democracy with free and fair elections and also improve the economic management. 

 

The third surprise in the ECLAC report is that Chile has overtaken Colombia as the fourth largest economy of the region after Brazil, Mexico and Argentina. Chile’s GDP in 2021 was 317 billion dollars as against $314 bn of Colombia whose population is 51 million while that of Chile is 19 million.

 

Other highlights of the report:

-Latin America’s GDP is projected to grow at 2.6% in 2022 after growth of 6.5% in 2021,

-growth rate of major economies of the region: -Brazil-1.6%, Mexico-1.9%, Argentina-3.5%, Chile-1.9%, Colombia-6.6% and  Peru-2.5%,

-Central America will grow by 4.1%. Dominican Republic- 5.3%

-Average inflation of the region was 8.4% in June 2022. Argentine inflation expected to be 65%, up from 48% in 2021. 

-In the first half of 2022, twelve of the region’s economies reported currency depreciation against the dollar as compared to late 2021. Average depreciation in the region’s currencies in the first half of 2022, excluding the economies with chronic inflation, was 3.3%

 

More in the ECLAC report

https://repositorio.cepal.org/bitstream/handle/11362/48078/4/S2200606_en.pdf

 

The positive turn of Venezuelan market has already shown promises for India. Exports of India to Venezuela reached a decade-high 334 million dollars in 2021-22. There is scope for significantly increasing the exports in the coming years. India could also hope to resume imports of oil from Venezuela in the near future. India had imported over 10 billion dollars of oil from Venezuela before the US sanctions. India has also made large investments in the Venezuelan oil sector. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world surpassing even Saudi Arabia. 

 

 

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