President Maduro delivering a speech during his China tour. Photo: Atlantic Council.
The president of Venezuela highlighted the potential of eastern Venezuela and proposed heightened economic cooperation between China’s province of Shandong and Venezuela’s states of Anzoátegui and Monagas.
Continuing his tour of China, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro expressed, this Monday, his country’s interest in establishing direct cooperation between companies in the Chinese province of Shandong and public and private companies within Venezuela.
The proposal was presented by the head of state during a meeting with the secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) of Shandong and president of the Standing Committee of the Provincial People’s Congress of that city, Lin Wu.
In conversation with Lin Wu, President Maduro said that the objective of this cooperation is to “update, with the technology that you have created, the entire industrial, agro-industrial and production sectors of Venezuela,” according to a press release by the Presidential Press.
The president referred to the meeting—held at the invitation of President Xi Jinping—as historic, as it places economic relations between the two countries at the highest level.
President Maduro referred to the people of China as “brother peoples that are traveling the same path of a world without hegemons, without colonialism—a world of peace,” where “culture and civilization are respected.”
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“We are absolutely sure that Shandong, as a province, has very great power, economically, technologically, and culturally, which we can add to in a complementary way with all the experience and immense power of a project to expand the productive forces of Venezuela,” said President Maduro.
“The Venezuelan people have earned their right to the future,” said President Maduro. “That is why we have come to China. That is why we have come to Shandong: to tell the Chinese people that we are ready for a higher stage of cooperation and shared work.”
A new stage of growth between Shandong and the east of Venezuela
Maduro noted that eastern Venezuela has immense potential to increase investments, production, and trade with Shandong. The area has the largest certified reserves in the world.
“It has significant gas reserves and a thriving economy at a good time of growth,” said President Maduro. In addition, “it has great beauties conducive to tourism, but above all, it has gigantic potential for food production.”
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He recalled that he recently created a Special Economic Zone for Food Production between Anzoátegui and Monagas for the entire eastern region.
“They are of great importance because in the development of this Special Economic Zone for Food Production … there is the great possibility that Venezuela will become a net exporter of food to the world,” said the president.
President Maduro expressed his opinion that great work can be carried out to raise the bilateral cooperation between China and Venezuela to a new stage of mutual vitality through economic cooperation between Shandong, Anzoátegui, and Monagas.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
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