Iran and Venezuela to launch joint bank
By Benedict Mander in Caracas and Anna Fifield in Tehran
Published: May 21 2008 21:31 | Last updated: May 21 2008 21:31
Iran and Venezuela will launch a joint bank to fund development projects, as ties between two of the fiercest critics of US ”imperialism” continue to strengthen.
It is the latest in a string of almost 200 co-operative ventures worth more than $20bn signed since 2001 in an attempt to circumvent international isolation.
The bi-national bank, to be based in Tehran, will have an initial capital base of $1.2bn, with each country contributing half of the start-up funds. The foreign ministry in Tehran, which is overseeing the bank, could not be reached for comment on Wednesday.
Other agreements between OPEC’s biggest price hawks, which together account for around a fifth of the oil cartel’s output, include oil and gas exploration deals, as well as building factories for products as diverse as tractors, bicycles and corn flour.
Many projects have so far failed to materialise, however. ”While they have signed a lot of economic agreements which have had very little follow through, this bank is very important as they seem to be actually taking concrete steps to implement it,” says Dan Erikson, an analyst at the Washington-based think tank, the Inter-American Dialogue.
Venezuela has also driven proposals to establish the Bank of the South, to which South American nations are expected to contribute collectively some $7bn, but the project appears to have stalled over difficulties in determining the bank’s precise functions. Relations between Iran and Venezuela, which analysts say are guided more by geopolitics than economics, have blossomed since presidents Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad and Hugo Chávez took office.
Both leaders have repeatedly made visits to each other’s capitals - during one visit to Tehran last year, Mr Chávez gave his counterpart an Airbus A340-200 as a sign of friendship.
”The fact that Chávez is clearly serious about deepening ties with Iran indicates that he is not particularly concerned about how he is seen in Washington right now,” said Mr Erikson, referring to a debate currently taking place over whether Venezuela should join Iran on the US’s blacklist of countries classified as ”state sponsors of terror”.
The Venezuelan government is accused of supporting Farc, the Colombian rebel group.
Washington also criticised Venezuela earlier this year for allowing passengers on board its weekly flight from Tehran without proper screening, causing fears that terrorists and arms have been transported on the aircrafts. Venezuela has denied the accusations.
More recently, US congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has pushed for a federal investigation to establish whether Venezuela’s wholly-owned US subsidiary Citgo is benefiting from co-operation agreements with Iran, violating US embargoes. |
