just as castro was aging, and with less influence than he'd had all of his career, along comes chavez to reinvigorate him.
chavez had ties to china, brazil, cuba, n korea, iran, etc.
no doubt the bush administration is going to need to turn its attention to this hemisphere.
Venezuelan president Chávez arrived in Cuba accompanied by a numerous delegation of ministers and businessmen prepared to push forward the exchange with the island and proposed in his Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) as an alternative to the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas) proposed by the US, according to Efe.
On the agenda of this visit is the signing of a dozen cooperation agreements, some concerning basic activities such as electricity and oil, and the celebration of the first meeting for the establishment of ALBA.
ALBA "already started up some time ago. It is under development, we are under development" said Chávez in brief comments to the press during his first public appearance alongside Cuban leader Castro, at the inauguration of an office of the gigantic Venezuelan oil company PDVSA in the Commerce Exchange in Havana. The presence of PDVSA in Cuba has strategic importance for both countries.
Venezuela intends to make the island its center of operations for the Caribbean and Cuba has benefited from a significant increase in the supply of Venezuelan oil agreed to in the Integral Cooperation Agreement written in 2000.
"We are building a base of operations in Cuba", said on Wednesday the Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Rafael Ramírez.
The minister said that oil exports to the island had surpassed the 50,000 barrels a day at preferential prices established in the agreement and had reached 80.000 barrels.
With this increase in the supply of oil to the island, Venezuela has become the main pillar of the weakened Cuban economy that, according to Castro, has begun to recover now from its "special period" in which it had been submerged since the fall of the Soviet Block. In addition, Cuba and Venezuela intend to promote bilateral commerce, which Cuban officials estimated at some $1.5 billion dollars in 2004.
To achieve it, the Industrial Bank of Venezuela (BIV) opened today a branch office in Havana with some $400 million dollars assigned for commercial operations made up of non-petroleum products.
Cuba hopes for all kinds of consumer goods from Venezuela, from canned sardines to chocolate to clothing, furniture, and home appliances, which could be sold at below-normal prices in a chain of stores that they will open on the island.
The president of Industrial Bank of Venezuela, Luis Quiaro, explained to EFE that the new office will operate under a special license, the first granted in Cuba to a foreign bank, which will facilitate the receipt and granting of credit or financing.
This week, he went on, there will be coordination meetings concerning the financing of this new business scheme, which is based on the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas.
The BIV has $200 million dollars from the Development Bank, another $81 million through Banco Exterior, and $119 million more in credit to launch this commercial relationship.
To explore possibilities in the Cuban market, more than 200 businesses have come to the Venezuelan Products Exposition, which will remain open until Saturday in Havana.
Beyond business, Chávez and Castro will have the chance for long and extended talks about ALBA, the situation in Latin America, and their differences with Washington in the special session of the 1st Reunion for the establishment of ALBA expected for tonight.
From discussing the benefits of ALBA they will move on to criticism of FTAA in a special session of the 4th Hemispheric Meeting against the Free Trade Area of the Americas organized for tomorrow, Friday.***
Amen to that.