Maduro affirms Venezuela will recover its economy despite sanctions

Caracas, January 16 (RHC)-- Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in the framework of his annual message before the National Assembly, highlighted that the country is on the road to economic recovery in the midst of the illegal unilateral and coercive sanctions imposed by the White House.

"It can be announced that after five years of economic war, Venezuela recovered the economic path, the third quarter the economy achieved a growth of 7.6 percent and institutions project a growth of over four percent of the Venezuelan economy (...) The growth of domestic trade reached 33 percent". informed the head of state.

The president stated that the positive numbers are also due to the political dialogue with all sectors which has led to the reinstitutionalization", after five years of financial persecution we have managed to activate the 17 engines of the alternative Bolivarian economic agenda, with a lot of patience, adequate and correct decisions in the monetary, fiscal, exchange, productive, national and international investment fields", he added.

Continuing with the economic indexes, President Maduro pondered the increase of families for their consumption, "in households there was a 4.9 percent growth of consumption, as well as 8.7 percent of Government consumption, the money circulating increased to 3.1 percent of investment, evidencing an economic growth", he detailed.

"We reached 80 percent of the digital economy, which is not what is aspired, but it is a good step for the launching of the digital bolivar (...) There were 121 million digital transactions. I thank the entrepreneurs of the country, because this achievement is collective, national, of everyone", emphasized President Maduro.

Alluding to the economic recovery, the President highlighted the entrepreneurships raised in the last years, which represents a dynamization of the national currency, "this 2022, we are going to an investment of the credit of the entrepreneurships, I call the Public and Private Banking to support the entrepreneurs", he added.

"The year 2022 was a before and after, a refoundational (....) in poverty indicators we achieved a substantial improvement, we managed to decrease from 18.4 to 17.7 percent, in the midst of economic recovery, and extreme poverty remained at the same level of 4.1 percent. We are aiming for zero extreme poverty by 2025," said the Venezuelan president.

Despite the illegal sanctions suffered by the South American nation by Washington, the President reiterated that the housing plan guaranteed to the population was maintained and will be continued in 2022.   "Last year the construction of houses reached 3,900,000, we are setting goals such as maintaining 500,000 houses built," he added.

"Last year, 76 percent of the national budget was destined to social programs (...) the bonuses given through the Carne de la Patria help people at the end of the month when the salary is not enough", asserted the president.

Alluding to the maintenance of social policies in the midst of the illegal sanctions, the president ordered his ministers to continue in the execution of programs to recover health centers, the strengthening of education and other social missions that are a reference in the world.