Economic history of Venezuela
[2] From 1958 to 1989, democratic leaders attempted to use the large oil revenues to invest in other industry through various policies such as import substitution and other programs designed to diversify the Venezuelan economy away from a highly specialised export range.
[9] This ended up having limited effects in the economy as World War II broke out and Venezuela continued supplying large amounts of oil to the United States.
[2] Through the 1950s, the Venezuelan economy grew at a healthy rate despite rampant corruption and deceit for foreign companies and the indifferent stance of the government.
[10] Rómulo Betancourt's government founded the Central Office of Coordination and Planning (also known as Cordiplan) which issued multiyear plans with broad economic development objectives[1] Throughout his tenure, the government pursued social projects such as improving health, education and access to potable water, an effort propelled by the Democratic Action Party that Rómulo Betancourt belonged to.
[11] These efforts were mainly focused on improving education and health in an attempt to diversify Venezuelan exports away from oil to encourage other industry to develop.
Despite these efforts, the government made little progress towards diversifying its own revenue streams, passing reforms of its oil policy with the Hydrocarbons Act of 1943.
During this period President Carlos Andrés Pérez was elected and pledged to make Venezuela a developed country within a few years,[citation needed] known as 'La Gran Venezuela', through policies revolving around financing state-owned and enterprise-led industrialisation in order to facilitate heavy import substitution as a rebirth of the ‘sow the oil’ campaign[11] as well as price controls, income increases and fighting poverty.
[citation needed] These issues typified the presidential campaigns of 1978–1979 due to concerns about the rapid rate of public and private expansion.
[1] Despite these concerns, the newly elected president Luis Herrera Campins continued the frenzy of government spending after oil prices surged again from 1978 to 1982.
As a result, the national debt multiplied and the government could no longer support its large array of protections such as price controls and subsidies, as well as over four hundred state-owned businesses.
In 1989, President Carlos Andres Perez was elected and attempted to combat these issues using various International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans and other austerity measures,[10] however this ultimately resulted in what is now known as the 'Caracazo'.
[citation needed] In 1992, the then Colonel Hugo Chávez and his supporters made 2 coup attempts, resulting in 2 years jail time.
[2] This continued for several days until business leader Pedro Carmona and his vice president Diosdado Cabello were removed from Miraflores Palace and Chávez was restored to power.
The strike cost Venezuela approximately 13.5 billion dollars in direct loses due to the shutdown of PDVSA for over two months and the need to import oil and gas from Brazil to run transport and other facilities.
[2] In 2004, Chávez and his government returned to furthering their programs promoting welfare and the redistribution of wealth across the Venezuelan people, particularly focused on the poorer areas of the country.
These programs were known as 'misiones' and allowed (and were staffed by) many Cuban teachers, doctors and paramedics to practice in Venezuela and were financed by oil export revenues.
[5] In 2014, nationwide protests broke out, beginning in the Táchira and Mérida state in response to the attempted rape of a female student, as well as record inflation and shortages of basic goods.
