Venezuela, Cuba Sign Accords to Increase Oil Refining, Mining

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Bloomberg

Venezuela, Cuba Sign Accords to Increase Oil Refining, Mining

By Matthew Walter

Dec. 23 (Bloomberg) -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed 14 economic cooperation agreements yesterday with Cuba's acting leader Raul Castro, deepening Venezuela's ties with the communist country.

The accords will increase oil refining capacity and petrochemical output in Cuba, according to a statement today from Venezuela's information ministry. Chavez and Castro also agreed to jointly develop mining deposits containing gold, zinc, copper, lime and chromium.

Chavez, a self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary who often refers to Cuba's convalescing President Fidel Castro as a father figure, has increased trade and investment in Cuba over the past eight years, providing economic relief to the island nation after it lost economic support from the former Soviet Union in 1991.

Trade between the two countries has risen to $7 billion a year, up from $388 million when Chavez was elected in 1998, Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage Davila said, according to the Venezuelan state news wire Agencia Bolivariana de Noticias.



Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601086&sid=aj3tltnDZa9Q&refer=latin_america

[Hydra]

1. US economic leverage is declining rapidly

I wonder what they'll do about that.

[killbotfactory]

2. Start another war, stage another coup, implement another embargo

anything but deal rationally with nations who propose economic systems that would "steal" money from the rich (who have a god given right to the natural resources of every country on earth).

[Akoto]

3. The same thing Cuba and Venezeula will have to do.

Find an alternative to oil.

It's great that they're banding together and escaping the tyranny to which their part of the world has been subjected. That said, they will inevitably fall to the same problem we face: an economy built upon a finite supply of rotten dinosaur bones.

[fascisthunter]

4. Good for Them (nt)

[Acadia Blue]

5. If **** had any intelligence, he could have become friends with

Venezula and Cuba and we would be drilling off Cuba's shore. But the idiot dictator does not talk to people he does not like even if it is in the national interest of the country. This is what we get for having an idiot in office.

[killbotfactory]

7. Bush, and the people he represents, aren't interested in doing business with any country...

they can't exploit.

[bitchkitty]

6. Funny - no Chavez bashers...

What, did they retire?

I hate the snarky tone of "self-proclaimed socialist revolutionary."