VENEZUELAN President Nicolas Maduro’s socialist government decreed Friday a 60-day “economic emergency” for the recession-hit OPEC nation reeling from low oil prices and a sputtering state-led economic model.

    The government also published the first macroeconomic data for more than a year, showing GDP dropped in the third quarter while inflation surged.

    The decree, read by new economy vice president Luis Salas and to be debated this week by parliament, did not mention any major policy changes such as a widely rumored currency devaluation or a hike in the price of heavily subsidized fuel.

    Maduro, a former bus driver and foreign minister who won election to replace Hugo Chavez in 2013, has stuck to his mentor’s policies of strict currency and price controls.

    But critics say it is time to change a failed model.

    Venezuelans are suffering a deep recession, the world’s highest inflation and widespread shortages of basics.

    In data released Friday, the central bank said Venezuela’s annualized inflation at the end of the third quarter in 2015 was 141.5 percent while inflation in the first nine months of last year was 108.7 percent.

    GDP dropped 7.1 percent year on year in the third quarter of last year, the bank added in the first official data on inflation and economic growth for more than a year.

    Dependent on oil for about 96 percent of its hard currency revenues, Venezuela’s basket fell last week to US$24.38, its lowest level in more than 12 years.

    The government blames its woes on plunging oil prices and an “economic war” by its foes. But the opposition, which won the National Assembly last month due to public fury at the economic crisis, says policy incompetence has hurt the country’s economy.

    (SD-Agencies)

Caption:

A man counts bolivar notes at a vegetable street market in Caracas on Saturday. Venezuela’s socialist government decreed an “economic emergency” Friday that will expand its powers and published the first data in a year that shows the depth of a recession fueled by low oil prices and a sputtering state-led model. The central bank, which has been lambasted by critics of President Nicolas Maduro’s government for hiding statistics since the end of 2014, said the South American OPEC nation’s economy shrank 4.5 percent in the first nine months last year. Inflation soared in that period to an annual rate of 141.5 percent, the world’s worst.

    SD-Agencies