When Venezuelabecamerichest country in Latin America?

In 1960, venezuela founded the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) along with Iran, Iraq, kuwait and Saudi Arabia. The purpose of this organization was to keep prices uniform among the world's largest oil producers. Later, Qatar, Indonesia, Libya, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Nigeria, Ecuador, Gabon, Angola, equatorial guinea and Republic of Congo also joined this group. That same year, venezuela established its first state oil company, venezuela Petroleum Corporation, and raised the income tax of oil companies to 65 percent. This significantly increased the government's revenue from oil. In 1973, when OPEC imposed a five-month embargo on countries supporting Israel, oil prices increased fourfold. This event brought venezuela to the top in terms of per capita income in Latin America.

During this period, the government's treasury increased by $10 billion, but along with this, corruption and mismanagement also increased. It is alleged that between 1972 and 1997, about $100 billion was embezzled.

Beginning of Venezuela's downfall

Venezuela's downfall began in the 80s. In this decade, with the fall in global oil prices, Venezuela's economy shrunk and inflation began to rise. On the other hand, the debt on the Venezuelan government also increased. The government's policies sparked riots in the country. In the same year, in 1992, a military officer Hugo Chavez tried to stage a coup, but failed. However, Hugo Chavez gained a lot of fame.

Then in 1998, Hugo Chavez won the presidential election. He promised that Venezuela's vast oil wealth would be used to reduce poverty and inequality. Chavez started several missions, which aimed to expand social services and reduce poverty by 20 percent.But, along with these efforts, he took many such steps, due to which the country's oil production decreased significantly and the country's debt doubled.

Chavez fired thousands of experienced PDVSA (Venezuela's state oil company) employees who took part in an industry strike in 2002-2003. After this, thousands of these people left the country. This led to a shortage of technical experts in the company. Due to this, oil production decreased a lot. The situation of the country became so bad that the country's GDP growth rate went into minus in 2009 and 2010.

In 2012, when Chavez was preparing to contest the presidential election for the third time, his health did not support him. To maintain his socialist political ideology Chavismo, he chose his foreign minister Nicolas Maduro as his successor. In the presidential election held a few weeks after the death of Hugo Chavez in 2013, Nicolas Maduro won but he won by a margin of less than 1.5 percent.