El Universal quoted Mr Nelson Merentes president of the Central Bank of Venezuela as saying that based on preliminary figures, inflation at the end of 2011 was 27.6%.

The communiqué highlighted that a more dynamic domestic aggregate demand pushed prices up, in a context of continuing restraints preventing the expansion of the supply of goods and services.

Consequently, inflation in 2011 hit its highest level in the last three years. In early 2011, the government's inflation target was 25%.

Further, Mr Merentes said that the gross domestic product climbed approximately 4%, twice the target initially set in FY2011 national budget. The economic growth of the non oil sector was 4.3% as compared to 2010, while the oil sector rose 0.6% only.

The BCV report said that "As for the non oil GDP, its evolution was related to the dynamism of trade in goods and services (6.6%), production of services by the government (5.3%) this is the spending of the Executive Office in health and education and the good performance of the manufacturing sector, which grew 3.5%."

Both sectors, the government's trade in goods and services and production of services, were the major driving forces that boost GDP this year. They represented 1.8% of the 4% economic growth in 2011.

(Sourced from www.eluniversal.com)