Venezuelan economist Pedro Palma rules out full dollarization

In a televised interview on Venevisión’s program “Abriendo Puertas,” economist and Ecoanalítica director Pedro Palma said Venezuela’s economy remains in a critical state, still feeling the effects of a deep contraction that began in 2014 and lasted through 2021.

Palma stressed that controlling inflation requires responsible fiscal and monetary policies and warned that a full switch to the U.S. dollar is not the right path. He noted that Venezuela already operates a partial, transactional dollarization that expanded after the hyper‑inflation of 2017‑2020, but he does not view a complete dollarization as the appropriate solution. He said, “No, I do not think the path is full dollarization,” and added, “The economy is still in a very critical situation.”