Caracas. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has announced a new long-term political project for the country aimed at sustainable economic recovery.
“It’s about seven transformations, seven goals for the next seven years,” he said in his 2023 annual report to the National Assembly.
In the annual address he stated plans for seven key areas: economic modernization, full political independence, safety and security, social concerns, political participation, environment and geopolitics.
After many years of economic downturn as a result of US sanctions, Maduro announced an increase in gross domestic product of five percent for 2023 and growth of eight percent is expected for 2024. He also highlighted his government’s successful efforts to control inflation.
The country’s economy has been steadily recovering in recent years after macroeconomic policy changes in response to the impact of sanctions. The sanctions severely limited the state’s ability to sell resources on the global market.
“For this reason, every result achieved, every goal achieved, must be labeled ‘made, built, designed, created, overcome in times of war and imperialist blockade,'” Maduro explained.
In October 2023, the US Treasury Department announced the easing of some sanctions in response to a political agreement between the government and the opposition. This is expected to play an important role in further economic recovery.
Maduro called for a “modernization of the productive forces” to achieve the diversification of the economy and reduce dependence on oil and the problems associated with it. It is about the complete transformation of the productive economic model:
“We will modernize all methods and techniques for generating national wealth in order to consolidate economic diversification with a view to a new export model,” Maduro said.
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In his speech, the president also announced a doubling of the “economic war bounty” (bono de guerra económica), a US dollar-linked allowance paid to public servants to counteract the loss of purchasing power caused by inflation.
The $30 increase represents a significant increase in income compared to 2023. The income floor is now $100 per month: $60 economic war bonus and $40 food benefit (Cestaticket).
However, this does not represent an increase in formal wages and is therefore met with criticism. Trade unions point out that the bonuses are not taken into account when calculating labor law entitlements such as holiday pay, wage rates and severance pay and thus ultimately benefit private entrepreneurs.
Venezuelan journalist Luigino Bracci Roa described the consequences of minimum wages frozen since 2022:
“The reality is that those who are suffering the most are those who have the least, who have had to go hungry, who have had to work as street vendors, those who have suffered medical emergencies in hospitals, who have also run out of supplies. The shortage empathy is terrible,” Bracci Roa wrote.
In his parliamentary speech, Maduro also announced that the government had foiled a number of coup plans in 2023. Among other things, a “sleeper cell” wanted to carry out an assassination attempt on him and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López. An attack on a barracks in San Cristóbal in the state of Táchira and the murder of the Chavista governor Freddy Bernal were planned for January 1st.
This was intended to cause chaos and turmoil “to disrupt the peace process in the country,” said the president.
Maduro accused the US foreign intelligence service CIA and the US drug agency DEA of conspiring against his government in collaboration with opposition leaders in exile. “The DEA is pulling the strings of the main drug traffickers in Colombia and obtaining funding from them to conspire against Venezuela,” he said.
The overthrow plans were uncovered by Venezuelan intelligence and confirmed by those involved who claimed responsibility, the president said.