Venezuela’s annual inflation rate reached 686.4% in 2021, demonstrating a slowdown in consumer price growth from a year earlier, when inflation was 2,959.8%, the country’s central bank said on Saturday.
Monthly inflation in December rose 7.6% and, since September, the rate has remained in the single digits.
The price deceleration follows government measures that include restricting credit and reducing spending on bolivars to maintain exchange rate stability.
As a result of this strategy, government entities and the state-owned oil company PDVSA began to pay suppliers in cash in foreign currency.
During an interview broadcast on state television earlier this month, Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro said that hyperinflation – which had lasted four years – had been left behind.
Despite measures to improve supplies and control inflation, prices remain high and continue to hit Venezuelan families’ incomes, limiting their ability to buy products such as food and medicine.
In 2019, amid hyperinflation and economic collapse, the government of Venezuela relaxed economic controls, allowing greater amounts of foreign currency to circulate, which provided some sectors with breathing room.
The Central Bank has not yet published data on the country’s economic growth.
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