El Salvador Enters Venezuela’s Petrocaribe Oil Alliance
El Salvador was confirmed this morning as an official member of Petrocaribe, an alliance forged by late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez with many Caribbean states to promote economic and social integration by trading oil at preferential prices.
El Salvador was confirmed this morning as an official member of Petrocaribe, an alliance forged by late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez with many Caribbean states to promote economic and social integration by trading oil at preferential prices.
The decision to include the Central American nation was approved in the 13th Petrocaribe Ministerial Council, which was held in the Salvadorian capital, San Salvador.
In the name of recently elected president Salvador Sanchez Ceren’s administration, foreign minister Hugo Martinez made a statement “expressing his satisfaction at the unanimous decision of the Petrocaribe member states to accept the country’s request to join the Petrocaribe Energy Association Accord.”
Martinez explained that El Salvador has no natural petroleum resources, meaning that access to such would give the country the possibility to better fulfill its energy needs, “under the principles of cooperation, solidarity, fair prices and mutual benefit.”
Upon becoming a member of Petrocaribe, the country “will receive preferential treatment, sometimes in pricing, other times in medium or long-term credit, which should allow El Salvador to put at least 40% of what it should be paying up front into social program investments…” said Martinez.
The nation’s request to join the organization was made official early this morning by Bernardo Alvarez, Petrocaribe president and secretary of the ALBA trade bloc (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Peoples’ Trade Treaty).
The Central American country is the 18th member of the accord, without including Venezuela. Other member states include Belize, Cuba, Dominica, Granada, Antigua and Barbuda, the Bahamas, Guyana, Haiti, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Saint Vicente and the Grenadines, Saint Lucia, and Surinam.
As such, the multi-tiered trade network based on social development and integration now extends its reach to El Salvador.
Original article by Telesur. Translation and additional editing and reportage by Venezuelanalyis.com.