During Pérez Jiménez' dictatorship from 1952 to 1958, Venezuela enjoyed remarkably high GDP growth, so that in the late 1950s Venezuela's real GDP per capita almost reached that of West Germany. Albeit, West Germany was still recovering from WW2 destruction of German infrastructure. In 1950, Venezuela was the world's 4th wealthiest nation per capita. However, Rómulo Betancourt (President from 1959 to 1964) inherited from 1958 to 1959 onward an enormous internal and external debt caused by rampant public spending. He managed to balance Venezuela's public budget and initiate an unsuccessful agrarian reform.