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The winding road to recognition
VENEZUELA · Report · 25 Aug 2022

With his sights set on 2024, when he hopes to secure his third term, Maduro needs to keep his fiscal austerity program on track while facing growing demands for better salaries and services. He needs to revive his electoral machinery, diminished by the civil service's weakening and the disillusio...

Stabilizing inertia is weakening
VENEZUELA · Report · 15 Aug 2022

The anti-inflationary policy based on containing bolivar depreciation yielded modest results in July. Inflation slowed down to 7.0 percent from 9.5 percent in June, while the bolivar depreciated in nominal terms against the dollar by only 2.6 percent after having done so by 9.3 percent the month ...

What to do about dry leather
VENEZUELA · Report · 02 Aug 2022

Legend has it that President Antonio Guzmán Blanco, during one of the three separate presidential terms he served in the late 19th century, likened Venezuela to "a piece of dry leather”: just as soon as you manage to flatten out one edge with your foot, another edge will curl up. (The Spanish ori...

Stabilization with tailwinds from oil
VENEZUELA · Report · 12 Jul 2022

Stabilization is advancing, thanks to tailwinds from rising oil revenue that are allowing the central bank to defend the bolivar energetically. Ultimately, it is this strategy of defending the bolivar that is setting the path for exchange rates and inflation both. Cash inflows and a political ...

Preparing for Mexico?
VENEZUELA · Report · 27 Jun 2022

Nicolás Maduro has made use of the pause in the Mexico talks to strengthen his international legitimacy by signaling his regime's adherence to the Russian sphere and welcoming authorizations granted by the U.S. government to Chevron and to ENI–Repsol. Chevron may now start talks with sanctioned V...

Demand for dollars pushes inflation up
VENEZUELA · Report · 16 Jun 2022

The doubling of the monthly rate of inflation in May to 9.2 percent from 4.4 percent in April was driven by bolivar depreciation that occurred despite the most intense effort to sterilize bolivars carried out by the BCV since the current Exchange Rate System (Sistema del Mercado Cambiario, or SMC...

Webinar Replay: Venezuela – Sanctions: What's next?
VENEZUELA · Report · 10 Jun 2022

Get insight into how changes to sanctions may reshape Venezuela's macro outlook and the future of Venezuelan oil. Visit our calendar page to watch the replay of our webinar featuring Ruth Krivoy discussing sanctions, the Chevron license, and what's ahead for Venezuela.

Neither sanctions relief nor negotiations, for now
VENEZUELA · In Brief · 30 May 2022

The quid pro quo that seemed to be on track a few weeks ago to reactivate negotiations appears to be on hold. License 8j extending until December 1, 2022 the operating restrictions limiting Chevron, Halliburton, Schlumberger, Baker Hughes and Weatherford International in Venezuela was a non-event...

The Two Speeds
VENEZUELA · Report · 27 May 2022

Venezuela’s political conflict is playing out in two different scenarios at two different speeds. Onstage, both the Maduro government and the opposition archipelago are preparing for a long electoral campaign ahead of the 2024 presidential elections. Behind the scenes, pressure is accelerating to...

Quid pro quo
VENEZUELA · In Brief · 17 May 2022

The Biden administration is finally determined to play its cards in favor of a credible negotiation process that channels the political conflict and leads to democratic progress in Venezuela.On May 17, the quid pro quo that the Venezuelan government had waited for since the surprise meeting of Ju...

Several factors fed inflation in April
VENEZUELA · Report · 12 May 2022

In April, the monthly inflation rate accelerated to 4.4 percent, driven up by monetary expansion, bolivar depreciation, the Tax on Large Financial Transactions (Impuesto a las Grandes Transacciones Financieras, or IGTF) on certain payments in foreign currency, and price increases resulting from t...

A grim political outlook
VENEZUELA · Report · 02 May 2022

Because the Maduro government has not showed progress in displaying at-home capacity to investigate alleged crimes against human rights in Venezuela, the International Criminal Court is about to launch its own such investigation. So, things look dark for justice in Venezuela. And now recent desig...

The unreported burst of inflation in March
VENEZUELA · Report · 18 Apr 2022

According to the Central Bank of Venezuela (Banco Central de Venezuela, or BCV), monthly inflation slowed in March to 1.4 percent from February’s 2.9 percent. According to our own data, by contrast, inflation accelerated—to 4.3 percent. The burst was driven by an expansion in the M1 money sto...

A windfall?
VENEZUELA · Forecast · 12 Apr 2022

We update the outlook we presented to you just four weeks ago. A little more than a month after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine and in an environment of tremendous volatility and uncertainty, oil prices have risen sharply, world oil and gas markets are undergoing restructuring, and the e...

Improving
VENEZUELA · Forecast · 15 Mar 2022

With 2024 presidential elections in sight, the government's goal continues to be to mitigate inflation and "de-dollarize" the economy with measures that bolster the demand for bolivars and contain dollar appreciation against the bolivar even if it means staying on the current modest and unequal e...