Venezuela Economic Activity Slows in Q1 2026
2026-06-15 17:05
By
Larissa Caser
1 min. read
Venezuela's economy expanded by 2.51% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2026, easing sharply from a 7.19% advance in the last quarter of 2025.
The deceleration was driven primarily by the oil sector, which contracted 2.12% after expanding 13.8% in the previous quarter.
Meanwhile, non-oil activity grew 3.11%, supported by financial and insurance activities, which recorded the largest increase, at 13.5%, followed by retail and motor repair (8.7%), restaurants and hotels (7.5%), manufacturing (6.4%), agriculture (5.4%), transports (4.9%), information and communication (4.8%), education, health, training, and other service activities (2.9%), entertainment activities (2.6%) mining (1.9%) and general government services (1.5%).
In contrast, construction activities plunged by 18.3% and utilities declined by 1%.