Venezuela Records Continuous Economic Growth Trend since 2021, President Says

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said Monday in an interview with journalist Ignacio Ramonet on the occasion of the New Year that the South American country has registered ten continuous quarters of economic growth.

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"We have managed to maintain growth in what I defined as the Bolivarian Economic Agenda, with its 18 engines, the 18 engines go step by step," Maduro said in reference to the 18 economic sectors prioritized by his government.

The president said that "these 18 engines need public policies, incentives, investment, domestic market, international market, good public management, good private management, good coordination."

Maduro added that perfect coordination has been achieved with all the country's domestic economic actors. "I believe we have a very high level of dialogue and understanding with international economic actors who are arriving with new investments," the president said. 

The Venezuelan president said that the country's final economic growth figures for 2023 are in line with ECLAC's previous expectation of 4.5 percent annual economic growth. "It's still ten consecutive quarters of growth in full siege and self-investment," he said. 

He added tha Venezuela has experienced "a 5 percent growth in agricultural activity, we already have five consecutive quarters growing more than five points in agricultural activity, producing our food and we are already exporting part of it."

The president said that "a 4 percent growth for ten quarters in a sustained manner of all the private manufacturing activity of the country, in a sustained, sustainable recovery, there is still a lot of room for the entire manufacturing sector to grow."

Maduro also welcomed the arrival in the last few months of important world investors from Western powers and large emerging economies, who have expressed interest in investing in oil, gas and basic companies.

According to the president, the tax collection grew 25.8 percent in 2023, by considering "the needs of the country and the expectations of what our social plans should be, tax collection still has a lot of ground to gain."

In addition, Maduro referred to the BRICS Group, which constitutes a very important power bloc for world geopolitics and will have an important weight in the future of humanity, he said.

"The BRICS are the future of humanity, they are already a definitive economic power, they have a powerful bank," said the president in his first television interview of 2024. Recalling that "at the South Africa Summit, Venezuela was accepted as a partner" of the group, he expressed his expectations that at the next BRICS Summit in Russia, the country will join BRICS+ as a permanent member.

The President considered that the possible entry of Venezuela into the group would serve for the development of BRICS investments in the South American country, for the development of large markets for Venezuelan products, for the development of various relations in the cultural, political, institutional and social areas.