Venezuela: Economy shrank 16.5% in 2016: report

WASHINGTON: Venezuela’s economy shrank a massive 16.5% in 2016, according to an official government filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The oil-rich but impoverished country attributed the collapse to a contraction of 9.9% in the oil sector and 16.1% in the non-oil economy. The 150-page report, received on Thursday by the SEC, also reported inflation at 274.4%, and an unemployment rate of 7.5% in the calendar year ending on December 31, 2016. The report revealed a sharp drop in Venezuelan imports in 2016, when purchases totalled $16.4 billion, half of the $33.3 billion of the previous year. The SEC requires detailed economic filings from foreign governments that issue their debt in the US. Venezuela is going through an acute economic crisis that intensified in 2014 with the fall in oil prices, the source of 96% of its export revenue.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 24^th, 2017.

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