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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...

2022 Inflation revised down
VENEZUELA · Report · 14 Mar 2022

Because we see the central bank holding to its interventionist strong-bolivar approach to inflation containment and the government staying in control of its spending, we revise down our annual inflation forecast for 2022 to 143 percent. However, we expect fiscal discipline to start to relax in an...

What is Maduro's bet?
VENEZUELA · Report · 09 Mar 2022

As soon as the invasion of Ukraine began, Maduro proclaimed his allegiance to Russia with extreme subservience, contrary to the overwhelming majority of nations that repudiated it or at least avoided condemning it, such as Cuba, Nicaragua, and other Russian partners. In the immediate term, ris...

A new political cycle has opened up
VENEZUELA · Report · 24 Feb 2022

Once again, the Venezuelan political conflict is being reconfigured. The view now is widespread that a new political cycle has opened up and the 2024 presidential elections are the key milestone. The opposition is undergoing reconfiguration, in a process that’s chaotic but will lead to the fo...

2022 disinflation reverses in 2023
VENEZUELA · Report · 14 Feb 2022

For 2022, we see Venezuela’s anti-inflationary policy framework’s staying focused on real bolivar appreciation, with few changes from 2021. Public spending will continue to slow down, although less abruptly than in previous years. The Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) will keep bank credit on a sho...

Will the opposition learn from its Barinas victory?
VENEZUELA · Report · 25 Jan 2022

The election of opposition member Sergio Garrido as governor of the state of Barinas on January 9 showed the opposition how powerful unity candidates can be, how efficacious local leaders can be, and how important it is at the regional level to build alliances perhaps not feasible on a national s...

Oil will be key to defend the bolivar - amendment
VENEZUELA · Report · 13 Jan 2022

Please see the amendments to Table 2 at the end of this report. Venezuela’s first hyperinflation cycle has ended. In December 2021, inflation slowed to an average monthly rate of 19 percent and an annual rate of 686 percent. The policy framework that brought hyperinflation to a halt lasted ...

What happens in Barinas doesn’t stay in Barinas
VENEZUELA · Report · 14 Dec 2021

Barinas State is the home state of former president Hugo Chávez. It has been governed by the Chávez clan since 1998. On November 21, the Unity Platform (Plataforma Unitaria, or PU) candidate and a Popular Will (Voluntad Popular, or VP) party member, Freddy Superlano, won the race for governor...

Pyrrhic victory
VENEZUELA · Report · 13 Dec 2021

Venezuela is about to exit the hyperinflation cycle it entered in November 2017. This year will close with inflation near 556 percent, one quarter of the 2,463-percent pace seen one year ago. It’s a Pyrrhic victory whose heavy toll negates any true sense of achievement and damages long-term progr...

Well-organized Chavista minority beats disorganized majority opposition
VENEZUELA · Report · 30 Nov 2021

As we had forecast, the Maduro coalition took most of the seats under contention despite its having won a minority of the votes: with only 46% of the votes, it obtained 19 of 24 governorships and 205 of 335 mayorships. More important is what these elections tell the opposition about the relative ...

Disinflation surprises
VENEZUELA · Report · 12 Nov 2021

Thanks to aggressive central bank intervention in the foreign exchange market and an acceleration in public outlays milder than we had expected, October’s monthly inflation rate came in at 9 percent. This marks a slowdown from September’s 10 percent and was lower than the 15-percent rate we had p...

The origins and consequences of opposition splinters
VENEZUELA · Report · 02 Nov 2021

The question as to whether to boycott elections has caused a progressive splintering of the opposition. Some individuals and groups bent on participating in elections officially break off from their parties or coalitions to do so; others simply participate in disregard for their parties’ official...

2021–2022 forecast: more benign scenario won’t end hardship
VENEZUELA · Forecast · 28 Oct 2021

We continue to see severe hardship ahead for most Venezuelans. Nonetheless, our revised forecast scenario is slightly more benign than that of three months ago. We revise up our outlook for growth. We now see a 2.5 percent pace of expansion for 2021, up from our earlier projection of 0.8 perc...