PETROCARIBE: 19 years of brotherhood and integral development

Published at: 29/06/2024 08:14 AM

On June 29, 2005, an Energy Cooperation Agreement called PETROCARIBE was signed in the city of Puerto La Cruz, which was born as an energy cooperation initiative proposed by the Leader of the Bolivarian Revolution Commander Hugo Chávez, with the purpose of coordinating energy policies that would reduce existing asymmetries in the region, diversify the energy matrix of member countries, eliminate the intermediation of transnational corporations and minimizing operating costs.

“This energy cooperation agreement proposed by the Bolivarian Revolution, and with the support of all of you, whom we are so grateful, stems precisely from the analysis we have made of the tremendous inequalities in the region. PETROCARIBE transcends a simple mechanism of trade, of hydrocarbons; it is an integrating mechanism and, beyond that, unifying, and, beyond, liberating,” said Supreme and Eternal Commander Hugo Chávez, during his speech at the IV PetroCaribe Summit, in Cienfuegos, Cuba, on December 21, 2007.

PETROCARIBE is an initiative that was signed by 18 nations with common needs, based on fair and equitable access to hydrocarbon resources, based on the principles of solidarity, complementarity, respect and self-determination of Latin American and Caribbean peoples.

“Now it's our turn to make the dream of El Libertador Simon Bolivar in the Jamaican Charter (...) PetroCaribe is the basis for building a new independence in Latin America and the Caribbean,” said the president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, during the X PETROCARIBE Summit held in Jamaica on September 5, 2015.

The signatory countries of this Energy Cooperation Agreement are: Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Belize, Cuba, Dominica, El Salvador, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname and Venezuela.

This agreement has allowed the signatory countries access to energy resources under a long-term financing scheme, which has encouraged the execution of projects in the social sphere, sponsoring the development of infrastructure with which the subscribed countries have advanced towards independence and energy security. In addition to rescuing the bonds of brotherhood between Caribbean peoples, the creation of PETROCARIBE constituted the first energy agreement of a solidarity nature and for the purpose of social development and of justice.

PETROCARIBE has brought integration and complementarity in the fields of health, infrastructure, electricity and education to its member countries.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to relaunching this energy cooperation mechanism and to the peoples of the Caribbean to continue articulating mechanisms under the principles of solidarity, brotherhood and complementarity.

Mazo News Team