Venezuela and Portugal signed 9 cooperation agreements

by rahul | September 13, 2008 at 10:50 am

204 views | 0 Recommendations | 0 comments

Caracas, Venezuela, 13 September 2008. This morning, nine cooperation agreements were penned at the governmental palace Miraflores. The agreements on agriculture, energy, health, industrial cooperation, environment and oil were signed by the Portuguese Minister for Economy and Innovations, Manuel Tinho and the Venezuelan Minister for Oil and President of PDVSA, Rafael Ramírez. President Hugo Chavez witness the formal signing ceremony. Portugal will sell Venezuela a millon low cost "Magalhaes"laptops for Children.

With these new strategic agreements, the total number of treaties signed in the last few months between Venezuela nad Portugal total 20. Last August, the first shipment of crude oil sailed to Portugal in the frame of an energy cooperation deal reached during the visit of President Chavez to Portugal in July 2008. In May, 2008, the Portuguese Socialist Prime Minister José Socrates made a three-day visit to Venezuela.

Venezuela hosts a significant Portuguese colony. The majority comes from Madeira Island and have inserted themselves successfully in the political, social, cultural and economical life of the country. Despite the renewed and improved bilateral ties with central government in Lisbon, "political relations with the Regional President Antonio Joao Jardim have not been good at all. After welcoming Chavez in the island during his visits to Portugal, the President of the Regional Autonomous Government of Madeira, Antonio Jardim showed his real opinion on the Venezuelan President during the attempted coup in 2002. The Centre-Right Social Democrat leader Antonio Jardim backed the coup against Chavez unaware of his prompt return to power few days later. As Jardim continues to enjoy an interrupted exercise of local power in Madeira, there has been not a single hint of Chavez returning to the island after 2002."

Sources: YVKE, VTV, RNV,