With empty state coffers and funding restrictions imposed by US sanctions, Nicolas Maduro's regime is heading into a nightmare scenario, just before the Halloween days, when a series of debt maturities of more than $ 3.5 billion begins, which are leading many to wonder where the government is going to get the money.
The experts consulted said that the regime will do everything possible to pay, even if that means further reducing the already impoverished food imports, which would increase the deficiencies in a country where the vast majority do not eat three times a day.
Even so, the feared scenario of default can not be totally ruled out by the precarious state of the country's finances, the reluctance of the regime's strategic partners - Russia and China - to continue lending money and the very low level of its international reserves.
The Venezuelan government faces small maturities throughout this month, as $ 28 million this week linked to a debt issue of state-owned Electricidad de Caracas.
"The real infernal week will occur near Halloween, by October 27, when they must pay basically $ 1 billion, and then on Nov. 2, when they will have to pay another $ 1.2 billion," said Russ Dallen, Managing Partner of the firm Caracas Capital.
Venezuelan bondholders are already experiencing an "existential crisis" in the face of doubts that the Bolivarian regime will be able to pay debt worth $ 3.526 billion over the next six weeks, added Antonio De La Cruz, executive director of the firm advisors Inter American Trends.
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Ratings agencies Fitch and Standard & Poor's consider Venezuela a country with "very high probability of default" in the next six months, since it lost much of its access to the international credit market with the sanctions imposed by the government of President Donald Trump, that prohibit in the United States the purchase of new Venezuelan bonds.
De La Cruz said the regime will move heaven and earth to avoid default, at least for the remainder of the year, given the conviction of its top leaders that they could not survive in power if they fall behind.
"They need to push this through 2018," De La Cruz said from Washington. "By 2018, they estimate a recovery in the average price of a barrel of oil and a decrease in the debt burden compared to what it was this year."
These two phenomena combined could give the regime a financial cushion of about an additional $ 10 billion, giving it a much greater room for maneuver than it has this year.
De La Cruz said he would not be surprised to see Maduro further reduce the already restricted imports of products, which now account for slightly more than 20 percent of the nearly $ 60 billion recorded in 2012.
That fall has already pushed millions of Venezuelans to the brink of famine, in a country where national production has collapsed before the systematic application of laws hostile to the private sector.
But the regime may well decide to completely suspend the import of food and medicines, De La Cruz said.
"They have shown that they do not care about the welfare of the population, if that puts their permanence in power at risk," he said.
In recent months, the regime had managed to avoid falling into default thanks to timely loans from the Russian government, which has always been willing to provide the hundreds of millions needed to cover the commitments of its troubled Latin American ally.
But Dallen said he is not quite sure the Russians will do so again in the next few days.
"The Russians are not very happy," Dallen said, noting that Venezuela failed to pay more than $ 1 billion in obligations to Russia, according to information released in June.
It is possible that $ 1 billion is relatively little money in the United States, but it is very much in Russia, said Dallen, whom authorities in Washington frequently consult on Venezuelan affairs.
It is possible that the Russians are approaching the point of concluding that it is too risky to continue pouring money into Venezuela, he added.
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