Agencies, Caracas :Venezuela’s government has declared an “economic emergency” due to “catastrophic” inflation and growth figures.The government’s decree sets a 60-day period in which President Nicolas Maduro has wider powers to intervene in companies or limit access to currency.”We are confronting a true storm,” Maduro said during his state-of-the-nation address to Congress on Friday.”This is not Maduro’s storm, as some believe, it is a situation throughout the country that affects every Venezuelan family,” the president said.The opposition-led assembly said in a statement it has the power to approve or reject the decree.The move on Friday comes after the government published the first economic data in a year that revealed the extent of the recession, which is fueled by low oil prices .The central bank, already lambasted by critics of 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. Venezuela’s oil-dependent economy is forecast to perform abysmally again in 2016.Opposition majorityMaduro lost control of the National Assembly in a December election due to voter ire over the crisis.He vowed the country would continue servicing foreign debt despite slipping international reserves, negating growing Wall Street pessimism about a potential default this year.He also insisted “the time has come” to raise heavily subsidized fuel prices. Economists say doing so is vital to fortifying foreign reserves, but it is a politically costly move that Maduro has avoided despite repeated promises.National Assembly President Henry Ramos, a longstanding opposition leader, offered a 40-minute response in which he chided Maduro and his policies and laughed off the heckling of Socialist Party lawmakers.”What angst there is here!” Ramos, 72, said at one point, during a rare opposition speech broadcast on state television.Mounting pressure Maduro, a former bus driver and foreign minister who was elected to replace Hugo Chavez in 2013, has stuck to his mentor’s policies of strict currency and price controls.With massive shopping lines in Venezuela and widespread shortages of basics from milk to medicines, the government faces mounting pressure to change what critics call a failed model.
