Petrol price in Venezuela is lowest in the world but inflation is highest
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According to World of Statistics, the inflation rate in Venezuela is 429 percent. This is the highest in the world. Inflation in Venezuela can be gauged from the fact that it is 4.25 per cent in India. That is, compared to India, inflation in Venezuela is more than 100 times. Now the question arises that how this condition of Venezuela full of natural disaster happened. In the 1990s, Venezuela used to be the powerhouse of South America. Its status can be gauged from the fact that in 1997, when the then US President Bill Clinton went on a tour of South America, his first stop was Venezuela. But after Hugo Chavez became the President in 1999, the socialist system came into force in the country.
China’s loan
Chávez ended relations with the US and pursued relations with China and Russia. China and Russia gave loans worth billions of dollars to Venezuela. The government spent heavily on welfare programs and fixed the price of everything. The land was declared government property. Nicolás Maduro became president after Chávez’s death and he also continued the old system. He also stopped giving figures of economic growth and inflation. Maduro printed wild amounts of money to pay off the debt. Due to this the value of the currency fell considerably. Venezuela’s dependence on oil exports has taken its toll. In 2014, the price of oil was $ 100 a barrel, which fell to $ 26 in 2016. Today it is around $75. The fall in the price of crude oil broke the back of Venezuela.
Maduro relaxed currency controls in 2019. Inflation in the country remained in single digit for almost a year due to conservative economic policies as well as reduction in government expenditure and increase in taxes. But at the end of last year, inflation rose sharply in Venezuela. Today the condition has become such that even the affluent people are not in a position to buy food and drink. The country’s markets are full of food and drink but they are so expensive that few people are able to buy them. People are eating at the same time a day or are dependent on charity. More than half of the country’s population is living in poverty. More than 41 per cent people say that they are skipping one meal a day. A large number of people have migrated to other countries.
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