Venezuela inflation rate hits 830,000%

A
toilet paper roll is pictured next to 2,600,000 bolivars, its
price and the equivalent of 0.40 USD, at a mini-market in
Caracas, Venezuela August 16, 2018. It was the going price at an
informal market in the low-income neighborhood of
Catia.

REUTERS/Carlos
Garcia Rawlins

• Inflation in Venezuela hits an annual rate of 830,000%
  — and is likely to keep rising.
• A report published to the country’s Congress by a
  coalition of opposition parties said that the annual rate had
  almost doubled since in the month since the last report was
  published in October.
• The International Monetary Fund expects inflation to
  hit 1 million percent by the end of 2018, with local economists
  expecting a further pick-up in price rises as Christmas bonuses
  are handed out in the coming month.

Inflation in the stricken South American nation of Venezuela hit
an annual rate of 830,000% in the year to October, according to
new data released this week to the country’s parliament.

A report published to the nation’s Congress by a coalition of
opposition parties said that the annual rate had almost doubled
since in the month since the last report was published. In the
year to September, inflation stood at 488,000%.

Monthly inflation actually fell somewhat, with that figure
falling from 233% in September, to 147% last month.

Read more:
 10
pictures reveal the huge amounts of cash Venezuelans need to buy
everyday things

This week’s figures may seem troubling, but things are set
to get even worse for Venezuelans, with the IMF arguing that the
country’s annual inflation rate will likely hit 1 million percent
or more by the end of the year.

“The collapse in economic activity, hyperinflation, and
increasing deterioration … will lead to intensifying spillover
effects on neighboring countries,” the Director of the IMF’s
Western Hemisphere Department
said in a blog post in July.

Werner went on to compare what is happening in the country
to the hyperinflation incidents seen in Zimbabwe in the early
2000s, and in Weimar Germany after the First World War.

Local economists, Reuters reports, also say that
hyperinflation could become even more aggressive in the final
months of the year. That’s because public sector workers are
given bonuses ahead of the holiday season which could boost
purchasing power, and push the cost of goods up even more.

The data is the latest to suggest that measures introduced by the
embattled president, Nicolas Maduro, is failing to achieve its
aims. Maduro announced a series of radical economic interventions
over the summer, designed to bring down inflation and stabilize
the Venezuelan economy, which is currently in an accelerating
decline.

Maduro’s policies included devaluing Venezuela’s currency, the
bolívar, by 95%
 and pegging it to the state-backed
cryptocurrency, the petro.

With the policies failing to have any real impact, the
continued hyperinflation of goods means everyday items are
unaffordable for many Venezuelans, and poverty and violence are
widespread in the country.

News of Venezuela’s still surging inflation rate comes just
days after reports that the country has
approached the Bank of England about getting back approximately
15 tonnes of gold bullion held in the UK.

Citing two sources with direct knowledge of the operation,

Reuters said that the plans related to recently announced
sanctions by the US aimed at disrupting the South American
country’s gold exports.

US President Donald Trump last week signed an executive order to
bar US persons from dealing with entities and people involved
with “corrupt or deceptive” gold sales from Venezuela.