-
Venezuela starts controlling currency exchange
Most private companies are struggling to buy the dollars they need to import raw materials and machinery to produce goods locally. This opened the door to a currency black market, where a dollar can now be sold for more than 700 times its value. This is thought by many to be behind Venezuela’s economic crisis, which has left millions suffering food and medicine shortage. -
Period: to
Imported subsidized goods increase during oil price boom.
The government imported goods and sold them at subsidized prices to make food affordable to the country’s poor. -
Period: to
Venezuela overspends during oil boom
During this time, the government spends its oil revnenues on its people. Poverty fell by 49% and extreme poverty by 63%. The number of people over 60 years old receiving public pensions tripled, and millions of Venezuelans gained access to health care and education. In this decade the United Socialist Party was able to win 41 percent of the vote in National Assembly elections in December, despite serious shortages of consumer goods, 180% inflation, and a deep recession. -
Period: to
Venezuela aggressively seizes private properties and lands.
The government tried to redistribute the country’s wealth by aggressively taking over hundreds of private companies and hundreds of thousands of acres of land. This policy was designed to shift ownership from private hands to government control, but the seized assets were poorly managed, further weakening domestic production. -
Venezuela implements a Fair Costs and Prices law
The law aimed to stabilize prices, guarantee access to goods, and to attack inflation, currently near 26% per year. These measures made many companies unprofitable, causing them to stop producing and worsening shortages. As a result, Venezuelans have turned to expensive imports or to the black market. For many people, staples like eggs and rice have become unaffordable. -
Oil money stops coming in, government can not sustain spending.
Because the oil boom ended, Venezuala slashed imports and used thinning reserves to pay its foreign debt and avoid default. As a result, food and medicine became scarce. -
Poverty reached 82 percent
In a survey done by three of the top universities in Venezuala, it indicates that in recent years the government underestimated the level of poverty, which reached 82 percent in 2016. It also indicated about 9.6 million people eat two or fewer meals a day and 93 percent of the population cannot afford food. -
Venezuela cuts imports
Because the Venezuela government increased regulations, and stifled domestic production, when the country cut imports, the weakened local producers could not keep up with demand. -
oil revenues account for 93 percent of exports
President Hugo Chávez promised to share the country’s oil wealth with the poor and to guarantee food security. To fund this, he relies heavily on oil revenues.