Podcast

Explaining Brazil #193: Why Venezuela will lead the world in growth

After years of economic debacle, President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has adopted more pragmatic economic policies. And the results are showing

Venezuela lost 80 percent of its GDP between 2014 and 2020. At one point in 2019, monthly inflation reached almost 200 percent. The Venezuelan crisis was one marked by corruption, hyperinflation, one of the world’s highest homicide rates, food and medicine shortages — as well as the largest exodus in the recent history of Latin America, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

A couple of years ago, the International Monetary Fund said it would take a major course of economic shock therapy for Venezuela to scramble its way out of the hole it had dug for itself. 

And apparently, that’s what President Nicolás Maduro is now trying to do. 

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Guest:

  • Ignacio Portes is The Brazilian Report’s Buenos Aires correspondent. He writes the Latin America Weekly newsletter and covers affairs around the continent. He previously worked for the Buenos Aires Herald and The Bubble, and has written for outlets such as Al Jazeera and The Financial Times.

This episode used music from Uppbeat. License codes: S8WGQSNKXISCJO9V.

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