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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who was sworn in for a third term last week that most of the world has refused to recognize, claimed Wednesday his government had driven inflation down to a 12-year low, marking a turning point after years of hyperinflation.
In his annual state of the nation speech he claimed that Venezuela’s ailing, sanctions-hit economy grew by nine percent in 2024 and that annual inflation had fallen to 48 percent, down from 189.8 percent a year earlier.
His government does not regularly publish economic indicators.
Venezuela’s GDP contracted by 80 percent during Maduro’s first decade in power between 2013 and 2023 but it has rebounded since following the abolition of currency controls and de facto dollarization of the economy.
From 686.4 percent in 2021, inflation has been on a steady downward trajectory.
The economy had hit rock bottom in 2019, a year after his first reelection, which was also tainted by fraud allegations and which prompted the United States to slap an embargo on Venezuelan oil.
Inflation in 2019 hit a record 344,000 percent.
Maduro vowed Wednesday to rehabilitate the beleaguered national currency, the bolivar, and to boost national production of basic goods to alleviate widespread shortages.
The 62-year-old defied the world in claiming to have won another six year-term in July 28 elections he is widely accused of stealing.
The United States, European Union, G7 and several democratic Latin American neighbors have refused to legitimize his victory.
The opposition says its tally of results showed a clear victory for its candidate, 75-year-old Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia, who went into exile in Spain in September after being threatened with arrest.
jt/cb/bs
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