The International Monetary Fund reported on Thursday that Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva held a discussion with Venezuela's Acting President Delcy Rodriguez about tapping the country's paid-in reserve tranche of IMF Special Drawing Rights to meet urgent humanitarian needs following the twin earthquakes that struck on June 24.
IMF spokesperson Julie Kozack said the conversation centered on the economic impact and humanitarian requirements resulting from the quakes, which have killed more than 3,800 people, injured nearly 17,000 and left almost 18,000 Venezuelans homeless.
Kozack described the reserve tranche as an "important and readily available source of liquidity that can be mobilized quickly to help address urgent humanitarian needs arising from the disaster." She added: "We have been working with counterparts to facilitate access to Venezuela's own resources at the fund."
Officials in Caracas have already signaled a plan to channel IMF-linked funds into reconstruction. Rodriguez said last week that Venezuela was creating a $200 million reconstruction fund with the IMF, with the money intended to go to contractors to rebuild lost homes. She also indicated that both the IMF and the World Bank have offered assistance to support recovery efforts.
Kozack emphasized that the discussions involved Venezuela's paid-in SDR reserve fund, which she said was about $350 million as of July 8, rather than the nation's broader $4.5 billion SDR allocation. She explained the distinction, calling the reserve fund "basically its readily available claim from its paid-in reserve assets to the IMF, and that's different from the SDRs that Venezuela has from the SDR allocation." Kozack noted that these reserve assets "could be exchanged for underlying currencies for use."
The IMF's engagement with Venezuela has increased in recent months. The fund has been re-engaging with Venezuela since the U.S. ousted former President Nicolas Maduro in January, but the South American oil producer remains far from qualifying for an IMF loan program because it must first engineer a complex restructuring of some $200 billion in debt.
Special Drawing Rights are the IMF's reserve assets that member countries hold at the fund, allocated according to shareholding. Kozack reiterated that SDRs are backed by a basket of currencies - dollars, euros, yen, sterling and yuan - and can be converted into usable currencies when needed.
The discussions between Georgieva and Rodriguez underscore immediate priorities: rapidly deploying liquidity to alleviate the humanitarian fallout of the earthquakes, and coordinating with international financial institutions on short-term relief and medium-term reconstruction funding. At the same time, Venezuela's broader access to IMF programs remains constrained by the need to resolve substantial sovereign debt issues.