New accords with Venezuela 'worth €800m' - minister

[Judi Lynn]

New accords with Venezuela 'worth €800m' - minister
by TPN/ Lusa, in General · 22-05-2013 08:35:00

A set of business accords just signed with Venezuela should be worth €800 million, Portugal's foreign minister, Paulo Portas, said on Tuesday, after a meeting in Caracas of a top-level bilateral committee that he said had gone extremely well.

"We signed a range of contracts whose potential value is certainly more than 800 million euros and which are for operations in the agricultural and food sector, the telecommunications and electricity sector, and the education technologies sector," the minister said of the five accords.

Portas said the meeting of the bilateral committee served "to resolve some pending issues, namely some payment delays that at times pose cashflow problems for companies, in the pharmaceuticals sector but not only there."

The next meeting of the committee, scheduled for 10 June in Lisbon, has a "very important" agenda, he said, citing planned projects in residential construction, energy, development, food and supply" as well as negotiations on projects for factories in sectors including construction materials, ceramics, tourism and culture.

Relations with Venezuela are, he said, "a priority" in Portugal's foreign policy ,not least because of the 400,000 Portuguese citizens living in the South American country and hundreds of Portuguese countries doing business there.

Venezuela is Portugal's second largest trading partner in Latin America, after Brazil.

http://theportugalnews.com/news/new-accords-with-venezuela-worth-800m-minister/28459

(Short article, no more at link.)

[Peace Patriot]

1. The Chavez/Maduro government just keeps barreling along, with huge trade agreements...

...with Brazil, Colombia, China and other countries, and now with Portugal, new membership in Mercosur, numerous trade agreements with the ALBA group, and a 5%+ economic growth rate, and furthermore with Venezuelans rating their own country FIFTH IN THE WORLD on their own sense of well-being and future prospects (in the Gallup Well-Being poll).

And virtually all of it "black-holed" by the corporate 'news' monopolies, which promulgates ONLY negative news about Venezuela!

I hope that this is not a U.S. pre-war brainwashing campaign but when I think of the ability of ES&S/Diebold to appoint Jeb Bush as president, and for oil moguls and the Miami mafia to thereby take full hold of U.S.-Latin American policy, I shudder. These corporate media "Big Lie" campaigns are always worrisome. Obama LatAm policy is worrisome, and has been wretched in many respects. But Bush policy could be a frigging monumental disaster like Iraq.

[Bacchus4.0]

2. all those trade agreements and no toilet paper

the US is Venezuela's largest trading partner. Why didn't you mention that?

[naaman fletcher]

3. The larger point is:

Why have trade agreements at all? The president of the US doesn't have to fly to europe and plan out a trade agreement. We have normal functioning economies and businessmen just go and make deals on their own.

All these trade agreements are evidence of the dysfunction of the VZLA economy, not it's strength.

[Socialistlemur]

4. I think there is a typo.

It says there are hundreds of Portuguese "countries". I don't know what they meant to say, but there is only one Portugal. I did notice the article says the Venezuelans are not paying their debts to Portuguese companies. This dovetails with the current food and toilet paper shortages discussed in the media.