Vietnamese President heads to Venezuela for official visit

Politics
The President of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, left on Tuesday for Venezuela in a two-day official visit that will boost bilateral trade relations. Triet will meet with his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chávez.

Energy is other important sector in bilateral relations. State-run oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (Pdvsa) has increased exponentially its partnership with PetroVietnam since 2006, both in the exploration and development of oil fields as well as in the construction of a refinery in the south of the Asian country, EFE reported.

Last August, a Vietnamese delegation visited Caracas and signed several cooperation agreements, including one for the establishment of joint ventures in Venezuela to produce energy-saving light bulbs.

The delegations of both countries discussed then the possible creation of joint ventures in other industry sectors such as asphalt, cement and motorcycles.

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IISS: The FARC financed Chávez before 1999

10:07 AM. DIPLOMACY. Admired by the Colombian guerrilla after his coup attempt in 1992, the then lieutenant colonel Hugo Chávez Frías received financial support by the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) for his projects after his capture that year. This mostly explains the relationship and "debt" between the parties, as revealed by a paper of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) of the United Kingdom.