Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro declared Wednesday that his regime deserves the Nobel Prize in Economics for its strategy against international sanctions for human rights violations in Venezuela.
“In the face of sanctions, what we did was stand up, put our focus on it, look for the best world advisors in economics, currency, finance, fiscal policies, productive policies, and today we can say that we deserve the Nobel Prize in Economics because we have made a statement on our own, with the Bolivarian Economic Agenda and the 18th motors, step by step”, he said in a speech broadcast on the state television network Venezolana de Televisión (VTV).
Venezuela has been in recession for eight years. But Maduro also said earlier this year, when presenting the balance of its annual administration to the Chavista Parliament, that the country “has regained the path of economic growth” after five years of persecution and financial blockade.
However, the basic food basket in Venezuela cost 455 dollars in February, an increase of 61% compared to a year ago, according to information released by the Monday by the Cendas-FVM center, an independent body that provides these data in the absence of official figures.
The National Statistics Institute (INE) has not published the cost of the food basket since 2014, which, according to experts, is part of a “policy of opacity” on the part of agencies, which also do not publish other indicators such as economic activity and poverty.
According to the Center for Documentation and Social Analysis of the Venezuelan Federation of Teachers (Cendas-FVM), in February 2021, an average family of five needed an average of $282 to meet their minimum food needs through the basket. That is, now, Venezuelans require 173 dollars more than a year ago to buy the same products, a fact that reflects the rising cost of living in foreign exchange in the country, which until last December experienced hyperinflation that pulverized the value of the local currency, the bolivar, and which opened the doors to an unofficial dollarization process which covers more than 50 per cent of transactions, according to estimates by private firms. However, various economic experts argue that the majority of Venezuelans do not have continuous and significant access to the currency.
“In Venezuela, prices also increase in dollars. Despite the fact that the exchange rate fell compared to January, the basket, in short, in dollars is increasing. The price marker, for a long time, is the dollar”, the director of Cendas, economist Oscar Meza, explained to EFE, who stated that to cover the cost of food, the equivalent of 300 minimum wages was needed, which in February stood at 7 bolivars (1.5 dollars at the time) and that from this second half of March, goes to 130 bolivars (30 dollars), by order of Nicolás Maduro.
With information from EFE
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