some claim that liberalization was the cause of Venezuelan economic difficulties, an over-reliance on oil prices and a fractured political system have been identified to have caused many of the problems. By the mid-1990s under President Rafael Caldera, Venezuela saw annual inflation rates of 50 to 60% from 1993 to 1997, with an exceptional peak of 100% in 1996. The percentage of people living in poverty rose from 36% in 1984 to 66% in 1995, with the country suffering a severe banking crisis in 1994. In 1998, the economic crisis had worsened, with GDP per capita at the same level as it was in 1963 (after adjusting 1963 dollars to 1998 value), down a third from its peak in 1978; the purchasing power of the average salary was a third of its 1978 level. Chávez and Maduro administrations Following the 1998 Venezuelan presidential election, the inflation rate, measured by consumer price index, was 35.8% in 1998, falling to a low of 12.5% in 2001 but rising to 31.1% in 2003. In an attempt to support the Venezuelan bolívar, bolster the government's declining level of international reserves, and mitigate the impact of the oil industry work stoppage on the economy, the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV) suspended foreign exchange trading on 23 January 2003. On 6 February, the government created CADIVI, a currency-control board charged with handling foreign exchange procedures. The board set the USD exchange rate at 1,596 bolívares to the dollar for purchases and 1,600 to the dollar for sales. The Venezuelan economy shrank 5.8% in the first three months of 2010 compared to the same period in 2009, and had the highest inflation rate in Latin America at 30.5%. President Hugo Chávez expressed optimism that Venezuela would emerge from recession despite International Monetary Fund (IMF) forecasts that Venezuela would be the only country in the region to remain in recession that year. The IMF categorized the economic recovery of Venezuela as "delayed and weak" in comparison with other countries in the region. Following Chávez's death in early 2013, the country's economy continued to fall into an even greater recession. The annual inflation rate for consumer prices has increased by hundreds and thousands of percentage points during the crisis. Inflation rates remained high during Chávez's presidency. By 2010, inflation had removed any advancement of wage increases. By 2014, it was the highest in the