Venezuela's central bank on Wednesday announced that the nation's economy expanded by 7.07% in the fourth quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, continuing a streak of growth now in its 19th consecutive quarter. The monetary authority highlighted oil activities as the main engine of the quarterly advance, recording a 13.41% year-on-year increase for that sector.
Non-oil activity also rose, the central bank said, expanding by 5.3% and aided by gains in construction and mining. Officials framed the results as occurring despite external pressures, noting development "amid exceptional external circumstances, marked by sanctions and financial restrictions imposed against Venezuela, intensifying during the last quarter of 2025."
For the full year 2025, the central bank reported that Venezuela's GDP grew 8.66% on a year-over-year basis. The monetary authority has not released its own recent inflation figures; its last published inflation data date to 2024, when the government reported an annualized rate of 48%.
Private-sector and independent observers present a different picture of the domestic economy. The central bank's headline growth figures contrast with assessments from external analysts, who estimate substantially lower expansion and assert that inflation has reached triple-digit levels. Local analyst firms cited by market watchers put consumer price increases at above 400% during the prior year.
The central bank's statement and the private estimates together highlight a sharp divergence between official macroeconomic reporting and alternative measures circulating among analysts and local research groups. The central bank explicitly linked the reported growth to ongoing constraints on Venezuela's external financial relations, emphasizing that those constraints intensified in the final quarter of 2025.
Beyond the headline numbers, the details provided by the central bank point to a differentiated recovery across sectors: a strong contribution from oil activities, and more modest, though positive, growth in construction and mining under the non-oil umbrella. At the same time, the absence of updated official inflation statistics since 2024 leaves a significant information gap, complicating efforts to reconcile differing narratives about the pace and durability of economic recovery.
Note: This article presents the central bank's reported figures and the contrasting estimates from private analysts and local firms as stated. Where official inflation data are not available, the article reflects the most recent official number cited by the monetary authority.