Venezuela drops on IMF ranks due to crisis

With GDP levels of US$179.9 billion Peru has for the first time over-taken the Venezuelan economy. Venezuela’s GDP has dropped to US$131.9 billion, almost a third of what it was in 2012 and barely half of Colombia. Over the last 15 years, the country has gone from being the region’s fourth-largest economy to its seventh, largely due to its dependence on oil exports and the failure to create other means of revenue. At the summit in Lima, the IMF said Venezuela will be locked into a “deep recession” lasting a minimum of two years, predicting that the economy will shrink by 10 percent this year. That conclusion means Venezuela is the worst-performing economy in the world. Inflation, already the fastest in the world, will average 159 percent in 2015 and increase to 204 percent next year, the IMF added. More…