Chart of the week: Venezuela's lost decade and a half

The Venezuelan government has stopped publishing official economic statistics, says Andreas Knobloch in Finanz und Wirtschaft. No wonder: the country is in a state of total collapse.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the country's hyperinflation is getting worse, with the annual pace of price rises expected to climb from 2018's 1,000,000% to 10,000,000%.

Falling oil prices have undermined export earnings; shortages, sanctions, and pervasive corruption wiped 40% and 30% off national output in 2017 and 2018 respectively; and annual GDP has receded to levels last seen in the 2000s.

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The "downward spiral" is likely to endure until the political stalemate between the government and the opposition is resolved.

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Ken Fisher, the Financial Times