Venezuela's oil revenue has collapsed 99 percent over the last six years, President Nicolás Maduro said, blaming financial sanctions put in place by the US for much of the loss.
President Nicolás Maduro says Venezuela's oil revenue collapses 99% in 6 years
Venezuela's oil revenue has collapsed 99 percent over the last six years, President Nicolás Maduro said, blaming financial sanctions put in place by the US for much of the loss.
The US $30 billion have been lost each year since 2015, Maduro said Tuesday, adding "it's impossible to imagine the amount of pressure placed on our economy." "For every US $ 100 obtained through oil sales in 2014 we receive one today," which means oil revenues fell from more than US $ 56 billion in 2013 "to less than the US $400 million last year." Venezuela's socialist government is targeted by a slew of international sanctions, including a US oil embargo.
Between 2014 and 2019 Venezuela experienced the "sharpest" foreign exchange losses in its history, Maduro said.
"In six years we lost 99 percent of our foreign exchange revenues." He added that the main reason for the huge drop in revenues was "the war declared on oil prices," to "attack the world's major producers," and said his country's economy and finances were being targeted.
Nicolás Maduro's statements were this Tuesday before the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) a project for a Special Anti-Blockade Constitutional Law, "to face the impact of the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States." "I come today to ask the Constituent Power to debate and approve a Constitutional Law, which will provide the State with the institutional and legal capacities and management tools to face and overcome the most perverse, widespread and brutal aggression that Venezuela has suffered," he said.
According to the Venezuelan Head of State, the regulations will promote "new modalities that circumvent and defeat all the mechanisms of the US blockade", through "adaptations and flexibilities" of the national legal framework.
"It is time to invent without making mistakes.
We need to find formulas to market," he said.