Venezuela

Venezuela's economy has been experiencing an acute crisis since the beginning of the XXI century. Inflation in 2022 was 201%, GDP grew by 8.0%. Being one of the world's largest oil producers, the country nevertheless experiences an acute shortage of basic necessities, food, medicines, gasoline.

Agricultural land occupies 24.5% of the area of Venezuela, including arable land occupies 3.1%, pastures occupy 20.6%. Main crops: corn, sorghum, sugar cane, rice, bananas, vegetables, coffee.

Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves — 302.3 billion barrels at the beginning of 2018, or 17% of the world's reserves.

The level of oil production in the country in recent years, however, has been steadily falling due to a lack of investment and a shortage of skilled labor. If in 2014 oil production was 2.7 million barrels per day, at the beginning of 2016 it was 2.6 million, then in 2018 it was already 1.3 million b/d, by the end of 2018 this figure fell to 1.24 million b/d, and in January 2019, according to OPEC, it amounted to 1.1 million b/s.

In addition to oil production, Venezuela has developed other types of mining industry — the country produces more than 10 million tons of iron ore per year, there are large deposits of bauxite and coal.

Venezuela is heavily dependent on imports, including food. The decline in world oil prices has led (since 2016) to a shortage of basic foodstuffs in the country.

Total energy reserves are estimated at 74.610 billion tons of CU (in coal equivalent). The net installed capacity of power plants is 32,620 MW, including: thermal power plants burning organic fuel — 53.6%, renewable energy sources — 46.4%.
The railway network is poorly developed, the total length of the tracks is 447 km. The total length of the highways is 96 thousand km.

Navigable are 400 km of the Orinoco River and Lake Maracaibo. The Venezuelan fleet includes 267 vessels with a displacement of more than 1,000 gross registered tons, of which 24 tankers, 4 bulk carriers, a container ship, 31 cargo ships of other types. The largest ports are La Guaira, Maracaibo, Puerto Cabello, Punta Cardon.

Venezuela's main trading partner is the United States. In 2017, the United States accounted for 34.2% of Venezuela's total exports and 37.5% of imports. India is in second place in terms of exports from Venezuela (16.8%), China is in third (15.7%); China is in second place in terms of imports to Venezuela (21.4%), Brazil is in third (14.3%).