Person crossing the street in Caracas while holding grocery bags. Photo: EFE.
Caracas, August 17, 2022 (OrinocoTribune.com)— This Tuesday, August 16, after a delay in the publishing of figures for the month of June, the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) reported that the monthly inflation of Venezuela last June was 11.4%, along with the July results which were 7.5%, showing a slowing down of inflation.
The figures for GDP and trade balance, among others, have still not been updated by Venezuela’s monetary authority for the whole of 2022, despite the fact that high ranked government officials including President Maduro himself have announced a double digit growth for the first half of the year and some sources have put it at around 12%.
Many international investors take having economic statistics available on time very seriously and some economists see this as a flaw in Venezuela’s attempt to bring in much needed foreign investment.
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The accumulated inflation for the first seven months of 2022 stands at 48.4%, well below the figure of 392.2% recorded for the same period in 2021. The year-on-year inflation (a comparative figure with the same period in the previous year) up to the month of July stands at 137.1%, while the same statistic in the month of July 2021 marked 2,444.4%.
The desegregated figures provided by the BCV show that the 7.5% July inflation was driven by education services (12%), leisure and culture (10.8%) and housing services (9.5 %), clothing and footwear (9.3%), while the price of food increased by 7.8%, health marked 7.3%, home equipment 6.1%, the restaurant and hotel sector registered an 8.1% increase, housing rental 5.6%, alcoholic beverages and tobacco 5.2% and transport 3.9%, among the most relevant sectors.
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In March of this year, the BCV officially reported that monthly inflation was 1.4%, the lowest figure since August 2012 when it was 1.1%. However, these numbers rose for three months in a row this year: with April at 4.4%, May at 6.5% and 11.4% was reported in June followed by a cool-down in July at 7.5%.
Far-right analysts and economists have already begun a campaign to promote the idea that recent monthly inflation numbers are the result of the new tax imposed on transactions in US dollars and that there is a “clear” path of price acceleration, without taking into account that in July the inflation went back to a one digit figure (7.5%).
These economists also criticize the recent Central Bank policy of intervening in the local foreign exchange market, injecting US dollars to keep its price under BCV’s expectations, without taking into consideration the global effect of the Ukrainian conflict and the boomerang effects of US and European illegal sanctions against Russia and the impact in prices worldwide.
These BCV numbers show that recent economic policies of the Venezuelan government and the monetary policy of the Central Bank of Venezuela are paying dividends, contradicting the negative analysis by some so-called experts.
Orinoco Tribune special by staff
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JRE/DD/EF
