Keeping Up With the Venezuelan Economy

The Venezuelan economy is always full of surprises, and seldom of the good kind. It has been a year since the Venezuelan presidential elections and nearly eight months since Trump took office for the second time, vowing that the US would stop buying crude from Caracas because “it doesn’t need it,” and so that the Caribbean nation would run out of money.

US policy in this short period has been a rollercoaster, from direct meetings between US envoys and President Maduro to withdrawn licenses and reissued licenses. So amidst this whirlwind, it’s worth asking: how is the Venezuelan economy faring?

There are many ways to go about this, but as a Venezuelan would often ask: “What would you like to hear first? The good or the bad news?” I usually go for the bad news first, to see if hearing the positive things afterward can wipe out the bitter taste.

But life’s too short, so let’s do it the other way around. According to official reports, Venezuela is now up to 17 consecutive trimesters of economic growth. Government and Central Bank representatives stated that GDP grew by 6.65 percent in the first semester of 2025, compared to the same period last year. When Chevron and other corporations had their licenses canceled in May, many analysts predicted an immediate negative impact. But it looks like the economy, particularly the oil sector, managed to handle the latest sanctions quite well.

Furthermore, forecasts for the rest of the year are encouraging as well. Opposition analyst Luis Vicente León, president of polling company Datanálisis, predicted that Venezuela would remain stable in 2025, clear of the economic contraction fears. This will mean a sixth consecutive year of GDP growth.

The stability prospects are partially owed to the Trump administration’s latest policy flip-flop, with the US Treasury Department recently greenlighting a resumption of Chevron’s operations in the country, albeit under slightly modified conditions.

This shows how, with an opposition that is completely divided and marginalized, with its far-right sectors operating in the shadows, bereft of any institutional footing, the White House knows it needs to negotiate with the Maduro government. Without ignoring the pressure from the hardline factions, with their Florida base, it looks like, for now, the “pragmatic approach” has won the upper hand to ensure that migrant deportations continue and that corporations like Chevron do not lose their “foothold” in Venezuela.

But up until this point, we’ve only talked about the oil sector. For better or worse, there is no question that it remains the engine of the Venezuelan economy. The longstanding idea of diversification remains fledgling, even if now and then we get news of progress in sectors like cement or seafood farming.

At the same time, there are also growing exports of scrap metal and ferrous products, mainly to China. In the food sector, some of the main products are cocoa, coffee, corn flour, methanol and tropical fruits. Sectors like agriculture and cattle rearing are betting strongly on having products for export.

Now, what has this all translated to? Maybe this is where the bad news start…

In the daily reality of public sector workers, teachers, pensioners, etc., there are no major signs of improvement. Staples get more expensive, salaries and pensions remain forgotten, and maintaining households is a permanent struggle. Some official spokespeople repeat that there are no conditions yet to significantly improve conditions for the majority, but the truth is that we’ve been waiting for a while now.

Furthermore, since October 2024, the Central Bank has not published inflation figures, which is always a bad sign. I’m not sure if the people responsible believe that by doing this, people will not take note of the rising cost of living.

And if we could claim that there is a sense of normalcy day-to-day in the economy, the warning signs are not going away. One of them is the familiar devaluation of the Venezuelan currency.

Since the start of the year, the exchange rate more than doubled, from 52,6 bolívars per US dollar to 139,4 [August 21]. And this depreciation shows no signs of slowing down.

Faced with this issue, Attorney General Tarek William Saab announced the arrest of nearly 60 people in connection with the publication of unofficial exchange rates, as well as the closure of 12 digital portals accused of manipulating forex data, but this did nothing to tackle the structural issues. Even in the absence of a centralized black market rate, platforms like Binance allow users to buy and sell (crypto) dollars with a significant gap compared to the official rate. It is not unreasonable to speculate that there are major operators who benefit from the existence of this gap.

At the same time, the government threw a big celebration over topping one million registered entrepreneurs. This mark would place Venezuela as a “leading nation in the region in terms of business initiatives.” But, in reality, this phenomenon is a reflection of the multiple jobs we’re all forced to take on right now.

According to Datanálisis, the sectors of the population with the lowest incomes spend over 60 percent of what they earn on food. As it is, incomes allow people to survive and little more.

Finally, there’s a generalized concern about a lack of transparency. We hear scattered stories: an investor here, a reactivated state factory there, the magic words “strategic alliance,” but very few details overall.

A lack of information is a breeding ground for rumors, for example, about the handover of plastic and cement factories to business groups from Turkey. Under which conditions is this taking place? Is it a concession or is there a transfer of shares? Do these companies pay taxes?

We could argue that we’re at war, with the enemy’s sights firmly set on everything we do, and that the time is not for entertaining certain debates, or that some things should be kept under wraps. But vices flourish in the darkness, and we should worry if, apart from seafood and chocolate, we’re also “exporting” a bit of our sovereignty.

Back to the good news, all signs point to an economy that is more resilient in the face of sanctions than it was a few years ago. This should at least afford a better opportunity to think and plan ahead. Or so I hope!But we cannot lose sight of the ultimate goal, which is improving people’s lives, ensuring that this GDP growth represents less precarity and an income that can stretch until the end of the month. The struggle continues!

Jessica Dos Santos is a Venezuelan university professor, journalist and writer whose work has appeared in outlets such as RT, Épale CCS magazine and Investig’Action. She is the author of the book “Caracas en Alpargatas” (2018). She’s won the Aníbal Nazoa Journalism Prize in 2014 and received honorable mentions in the Simón Bolívar National Journalism prize in 2016 and 2018.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

Translated by Venezuelanalysis.