Venezuela Achieves 96.7% Local Food Supply: President Maduro

"Venezuela is one of the 19 countries whose economic, commercial and human rights have been illegally and systematically violated by the United States every day for nine years," the Bolivarian leader said.

Between 2015 and 2022, as a result of the U.S. sanctions against the Bolivarian revolution, Venezuela experienced a drop in its gross domestic product (GDP) of US$642 billion.

"This was an economic massacre," Maduro said, highlighting that the U.S. aggression affected not only the Venezuelan state but also private companies operating in his country.

The text reads, "President Nicolas Maduro says right now that since the economic war began frontally in 2015, oil production fell 87 percent and reached its lowest level in June 2020 with 339,000 barrels per day, compared to January 2015, when 2.5 million barrels were produced per day. Until 2022, Venezuela stopped producing 3.9 billion barrels, which represented a loss of US$323 billion for the country."

Maduro also recalled that his administration set out to achieve 12 goals in 2023, among which was the consolidation of economic growth with equality, the gradual transition from the rentier model to a diversified model, and the maintenance of social policies.

In this process of recovering growth without abandoning the welfare state, the Venezuelan President highlighted three macroeconomic objectives achieved, namely, the slowdown in inflation, the stabilization of the exchange market, and the growth of the non-oil economy.

Venezuela has also managed to consolidate an agricultural transformation that will allow it to become an exporter of "healthy, safe, and sovereign food."

The text reads, "President Nicolas Maduro mentions that 73 tourist routes were put into operation in 19 states for foreign and local visitors. We closed December with an increase of 56.83 percent in the number of tourists, that is, 11,257,880 more tourists compared to 2022. This means that 30,381,435 tourists moved throughout the country during 2023. As the poet Chino Valera Mora would say, 'We are a wonderful country in motion'."

Currently, despite the U.S. economic blockade, 96.7% of the food consumed in Venezuela comes from domestic agricultural units, among which micro, small, and medium-sized farms are predominant.

This historic transformation has involved long-term efforts that involved the delivery of 13.9 million hectares to some 427,000 families by the Bolivarian revolution.

"These figures were not achieved even in the 40 years of the supposed agrarian reform carried out in the Fourth Republic," he pointed out.