CARACAS: The Venezuelan economy shrank by 4.5 per cent in the first nine months of 2015.
The central bank, which had not released official figures for economic growth or price increases since December 2014, said inflation came in at 108.7 percent over the same period. It said the economy contracted 1.4 percent in the first quarter of last year, 4.7 percent in the second quarter and a painful 7.1 percent in the third quarter.
The statistics came on the same day that President Nicolas Maduro declared an “economic emergency” granting him two months of special powers to deal with the economic crisis, including the power to take over private firms. Maduro was later due to give his annual state of the nation address to the newly opposition-controlled legislature, which is deeply hostile to the socialist leader and accuses him of running the economy into the ground.
