Venezuela’s timid gains in taming inflation fade

CARACAS: Venezuela’s modest advances in taming inflation since last year are being wiped out by chronic fuel shortages and a plummeting exchange rate, driving food prices up amid the coronavirus pandemic, according to economists, lawmakers and industry leaders. After peaking in 2018 at 1.8 million percent, inflation slowed last year as President Nicolas Maduro eased socialist economic controls, helping keep monthly consumer price increases below 30 percent in February and March.

But with a lack of fuel making it difficult to deliver goods and the bolivar depreciating some 60 percent in 2020, consumer prices rose 80 percent in April, the opposition-controlled National Assembly said on Monday, meaning interannual inflation was 4,210 percent. Shoppers on the streets say prices for some goods are doubling in a matter of weeks.

‘Everything is rising so quickly that what I deposit in my account doesn’t buy anything,’ said Diocelina Ospina, 67, a maid shopping in the city of Maracay who bought only 200 grams (0.45 pounds) of cheese because its price had jumped 40 percent in a week.

‘All we can do is eat less and stretch what we have.’ Inflation data in Venezuela is largely based on figures released by the opposition-run Congress, because the central bank publishes official data with several months of delay. The ‘Petare basket,’ an informal index named for the sprawling east end of Caracas that measures the price of eight basic food items, has jumped 109 percent since mid-March, according to the legislature. —Reuters