The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is discussing with Caracas the use of at least 350 million USD of its assets in the Fund to assist victims of the earthquake. This was announced by IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozak at a regular press briefing.
The IMF “maintains close contact“ with the country's authorities. According to Kozak, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva spoke with the envoy of the Venezuelan President, Delcy Rodriguez, earlier this week. Specifically, they discussed “the use of Venezuela's reserve tranche in the IMF, which is an important and readily available source of liquidity and can be quickly deployed to help meet urgent humanitarian needs related to the natural disaster“. "We are also working with partners to facilitate Venezuela's access to its own resources in the fund," Kozak added.
The IMF defines a reserve tranche, or reserve position, as the amount of foreign currency that a country is allowed to withdraw from the fund at short notice. According to Kozak, Venezuela's resources in the IMF were estimated at $350 million as of July 8. As a representative of the Fund explained, “The republic's “SDRs (special drawing rights, the Fund's unit of account) amount to approximately $4.5 billion“.
In January, Kozak announced at a briefing that the Venezuelan government would gain access to $4.9 billion in previously frozen assets at the IMF after it restored contact with the financial institution.
As of July 8, the earthquake in Venezuela on June 24 had killed 3,811 people and injured 16,740. 17,907 people were left homeless, 190 buildings were completely destroyed, and 856 were significantly damaged.