World Bank sees Venezuela GDP contracting another 25% by year end

The economy in crisis-hit Venezuela is expected to contract a further 25 per cent in 2019, the World Bank said on Thursday. "Real GDP contracted by 17.7 per cent in 2018 and is likely to fall by 25.0 per cent in 2019, which would imply a cumulative fall in GDP of 60 percent since 2013," the bank said in its most recent biannual report on Latin America and the Caribbean. The report attributes this "continuing implosion" in Venezuela, which has the most oil reserves of any country in the world, to the management of the country's economy rather than the global drop of oil prices and called the Venezuelan crisis "by far the worst in the region's modern history."More…