*Venezuela’s central bank (BCV) has announced that the country’s GDP grew by 8.78% in the second quarter of this year compared with the same period in 2023, following year-on-year growth of 8.40% in the first quarter. The BCV highlighted 11.08% growth in the oil sector in Q2, compared with Q2 2023, and 6.58% across non-oil sectors. In a statement, the BCV said that Venezuela had experienced 13 consecutive quarters of economic growth, which it said is evidence that “the Venezuelan economy is on a real path of recovery, reinventing itself and overcoming obstacles” following “substantial economic losses” from 2015-2021 which it blamed on international sanctions. However, the BCV’s figures were questioned by the independent economic think tank Observatorio Venezolano de Finanzas (OVF), which noted that the BCV had simply issued a press release without updating its database of economic figures, and suggested that the central bank had changed its methodology.
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