The International Monetary Fund confirmed on July 9 that Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva spoke this week with Venezuela's interim President Delcy Rodríguez about the country's use of its IMF reserve tranche, worth close to $350mn, to help finance recovery from last month's devastating earthquakes, but declined to confirm reports that Venezuela had already been authorised to access its Special Drawing Rights (SDRs).

IMF spokeswoman Julie Kozack told a regular press briefing that Georgieva and Rodríguez discussed the evolving economic situation in Venezuela, as well as the use of the country's reserve tranche at the Fund, which she described as a readily available source of liquidity that could be mobilised quickly to address urgent humanitarian needs arising from the disaster.

Kozack said the Fund was working with counterparts to facilitate Venezuela's access to its own resources at the IMF. She distinguished between the reserve tranche and Venezuela's SDR holdings, saying both are reserve assets but are recorded separately at the Fund. The reserve tranche, she said, is a member country's readily available claim on the IMF arising from its quota position, whereas SDRs are IMF-created reserve assets that can be exchanged for reserve currencies.

As of July 8, Venezuela's reserve tranche position — the asset Kozack said the authorities had signalled they wished to use — stood at nearly $350mn, while the country's SDR holdings totalled about $4.5bn, she said.

Asked directly by IntelliNews whether the Fund had authorised access to Venezuela's SDRs, and whether it could confirm reports that around $200mn had already been disbursed through the Development Bank of Latin America and the Caribbean (CAF) to support earthquake reconstruction, Kozack confirmed neither. A separate question on whether the IMF was involved in channelling funds into a special reconstruction fund that Rodríguez has said her government will establish also went unaddressed.

Kozack said the Fund was coordinating closely with the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank, which are assessing recovery needs, as well as with Venezuelan authorities on the broader economic impact of the earthquakes. She added that the Fund expected the disaster to have a significant economic impact beyond its humanitarian toll.

The call follows Rodríguez's appeal to Britain's King Charles III for the release of about 30 tonnes of Venezuelan gold worth about $4bn held at the Bank of England, part of a wider push by Caracas to unlock sovereign assets frozen since 2019, when Western governments and the IMF withheld recognition from then-President Nicolás Maduro. The Washington-based lender resumed dealings with Venezuela in April, following Maduro's ouster in January.

The June 24 disaster was triggered by two earthquakes measuring magnitude 7.2 and 7.5 that struck 39 seconds apart, according to the US Geological Survey. The death toll has climbed past 3,800 and 16,740 people have been injured, according to government figures released on July 8, though experts say the true scale of the disaster is likely understated.

The UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction has estimated direct physical damage to housing and infrastructure at about $37bn, comprising roughly $24bn in damage to buildings and $13bn to infrastructure, with telecommunications the hardest-hit sector at around $5bn.