Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Venezuela Estimates $38B in Losses from US Sanctions
Demonstrators hold a banner that reads during a protest against the U.S intervention in Venezuela, outside the U.S embassy in Buenos Aires

18 February 2019
Telesur

In this regard, Menendez stressed that it is 'cynical' for sectors of the opposition, protected by foreign governments, to promote the entry of supposed humanitarian aid 'when what they have done is to attack a sovereign country.

Venezuela's Vice President of Planning, Ricardo Menendez, said on Monday that direct losses to the nation's economy from U.S. financial sanctions are estimated at US$38 billion.

The figure corresponds only to the effects on the production of goods and services, as well as on the activity of hydrocarbons, the minister also said in an interview with the Venezuelan News Agency.

Of this total, 23 billion dollars respond to the impact on the Gross Domestic Product, while 15 billion are related to the siege against the company Citgo, a subsidiary of the state oil company Venezuelan Petroleum in U.S. territory, seized at the end of January.

The greatest number of production losses coincided with the actions of street political violence, known as 'guarimbas', in 2017, which affected the main trade routes.

'If we add to this the 20 billion dollars that were taken during the oil sabotage of 2002, we are talking about 58 billion dollars in losses that have affected the nation,' he said.

In this regard, Menendez stressed that it is 'cynical' for sectors of the opposition, protected by foreign governments, to promote the entry of supposed humanitarian aid 'when what they have done is to attack a sovereign country.

The right aims to suffocate the national economy, affecting input routes in parallel with the advance of its humanitarian aid discourse.

This financial maneuver seeks to annihilate the economy in order to have a pretext for the invasion, Menéndez said, adding that they intend to 'affect the social bases' of the nation.

The Executive's challenge is, precisely, to optimize the mechanisms to protect the people's income with a real exchange value that evades inflation.

According to the Vice President of Planning, the objective is to build a new economic apparatus and price structure, with other distribution schemes that will prevent the oligarchy from stealing the people's money.

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