2023-08-11 12:00:34
Venezuela’s economy fell 7% in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF).
The OVF indicated that, in the first three months of the year, the country’s economic activity contracted by 7.6% compared to the same period of the previous year, while, between April and June, it fell by 6.3% compared to with the second quarter of 2022.
The former anti-Chavista deputy and member of the Ángel Alvarado observatory pointed out, in a video released by the OVF, that the Venezuelan economy, which “had accumulated seven quarters of growth” since “the end of 2021 and part of 2022”, returns “to the behavior of decrease that it showed from 2013» until two years ago.
Alvarado said that this contraction has as its main causes the “fall in consumption, credit and public spending.”
In the note, the OVF added that two factors that negatively affect the nation’s economic behavior are, on the one hand, the “significantly low level of worker remuneration, especially” in the public sector, where the minimum wage is equivalent to 4.46 dollars a month, and on the other, a policy of credit restriction that “inhibits any financing to the economic sectors.”
Last year closed with a growth of 13.3% compared to 2021, thanks to the recovery of oil production from “very low levels” and a “boost” in the trade sector, according to the observatory.
#Venezuelas #economy #fell