MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

IMF forecasts Venezuela's inflation to reach 2.300% next year and unemployment 30%

Gross domestic product is expected to contract 6% next year, after shrinking an estimated 12% in 2017, IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook report

Venezuela’s triple-digit annual inflation rate is set to jump to more than 2,300% in 2018, the highest estimate for any country tracked by the International Monetary Fund.

 An intensifying political crisis that’s spiraled since 2014 has weighed heavily on economic activity. Gross domestic product is expected to contract 6% next year, after shrinking an estimated 12% in 2017, IMF said in its latest World Economic Outlook report

While Venezuela’s central bank stopped publishing inflation data in December 2015, the IMF argues the country’s consumer prices are estimated to leap 2,349.3% in 2018. As oil production declines and uncertainty increases, unemployment is forecast to increase to about 30% in 2018, also the highest and followed by South Africa’s 28% and Greece’s 21%.

The Bolivarian Republic has stopped making public most of its key economic statistics, leaving economists scant data to crunch. Before Venezuela’s new legislative super body took over the functions of the country’s only remaining opposition-run institution this year, the sidelined National Assemblyhad started publishing its own inflation index due to the lack of official data.