CARACAS, Venezuela – Gladys Rosales, a retired nurse in Caracas, said she has trouble making ends meet. She has to rely on the bolivar despite the ongoing dollarization in Venezuela.
And although experts said there are signs that the long-running economic crisis has hit bottom, it will take a while for Rosales, 60, to get relief.
“Note that my old age pension is 7 bolivars,” Rosales recently said in Spanish.
The dollar has traded for about 4.5 bolivares in the last four months and that is a sign that the Venezuelan currency has finally stabilized, Bloomberg reported last week.
In January, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro touted economic growth during his national address. He started to relax some of the strict controls in 2019.
Venezuela’s annual inflation rate closed at 2,959.8% in 2020 and at 686.4% in 2021, according to Venezuela’s central bank data released in January.
“We are still going to have the highest inflation in the world,” said Caracas-based economist Marcos Antonio Capote, a consulting manager for OMNIS.
An annual survey by academics from major universities in Venezuela estimated last year that the poverty level was at 94%.
Local10.com archives: Feb. 26, 2021 report
Weddle reported from Bogotá, Colombia. Torres reported from Miami.