IMF Issues Censure Against Venezuela

The International Monetary Fund threatened to bar Venezuela from voting on IMF policies after the Latin American country failed to provide IMF with the economic data it has requested, the IMF said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement was issued after the IMF Executive Board determined at a Wednesday meeting that Venezuela had failed to meet remedial measures that were approved late last year that required Venezuela to provide the IMF with the data it requires.

In November, the IMF found that Venezuela was in “breach” of its obligation to provide data “on the operations of the social security institute and on total exports and imports of merchandise, in terms of local currency values, according to countries of destination and origin,” vowing to meet again in six months to evaluate Venezuela’s progress in complying. The IMF referred to this data as “core macroeconomic data.”

But the Board today “found that Venezuela has not implemented the remedial measures and has failed to provide information on a number of additional items as required.” The data, the IMF said, was a first step to understanding “Venezuela’s economic crisis and identifying possible solutions.”

In an earlier note, the IMF referred to Venezuela’s economic collapse as one of the most extreme in modern history, and forecast that inflation would climb to 13000%, Alejandro Werner, director of IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department said at a IMF-World bank meeting last week.

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The IMF has issued a declaration of censure against Venezuela for failing to provide the necessary data. Continued noncompliance could elicit a harsher response including a revocation of Venezuela’s voting rights on IMF policies, Reuters reports.

The IMF statement comes just a couple of weeks before Venezuela’s elections scheduled for May 20—elections that could send the country into further chaos as new sanctions look increasingly likely should its democracy be further undermined by the election.

Venezuela’s oil production has experienced a sharp drop off in the last couple of years, leaving the oil-reliant country cash poor and its citizens hungry. Venezuela, whose production fell below 1.5 million bpd in March, generates 95% of its export revenue from oil.

By Julianne Geiger for Oilprice.com

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