Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Hugo Chavez and Por­tuguese Prime Min­is­ter Jose Socrates took an­oth­er step to­ward ex­pand­ed bi­lat­er­al co­op­er­a­tion with the sign­ing of 19 new agree­ments on the week­end.

Socrates's vis­it was "very op­por­tune" for "seal­ing even more deeply" what both par­ties had agreed to in ear­li­er meet­ings, Chavez said at the con­clu­sion of the sign­ing cer­e­mo­ny. The Venezue­lan pres­i­dent praised Socrates's "clear vi­sion" and "firm­ness," which "per­mit­ted this rap­proche­ment."

The pres­i­dent said that both coun­tries over the past two years had es­tab­lished a "re­la­tion­ship map" that they had been "con­sol­i­dat­ing," lat­er adding that with the 19 doc­u­ments rat­i­fied last Sat­ur­day the two gov­ern­ments are "broad­en­ing the hori­zons" of their co-op­er­a­tion. Min­is­ters and busi­ness­men from the two coun­tries al­so signed sev­er­al ac­cords and agree­ments of un­der­stand­ing, in­clud­ing one for Venezuela to buy two as­phalt con­tain­er ships, which will be built in Por­tu­gal over a time pe­ri­od and at a cost that were not re­vealed.

Build­ing res­i­dences, fac­to­ries

Among the ac­cords was one to build in Venezuela 12,212 pri­vate res­i­dences, some­thing that was agreed to on Socrates' ear­li­er vis­it to Venezuela in May 2008, and which now will be com­ple­ment­ed by the "in situ" con­struc­tion of three fac­to­ries to pre­pare the ma­te­ri­als re­quired for that project. In ad­di­tion, the two na­tions signed "acts of com­mit­ment" for Venezuela to buy portable com­put­ers and set up study groups to de­vel­op var­i­ous projects in the elec­tric­i­ty sec­tor.

Cara­cas and Lis­bon al­so agreed to eval­u­ate the pos­si­bil­i­ty of pri­vate Por­tuguese phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal firms in­vest­ing in the South Amer­i­can coun­try and for Venezuela to ac­quire in Por­tu­gal dif­fer­ent prod­ucts and ser­vices for in­ter­nal tourism, in­clud­ing a fer­ry. "You in Eu­rope are con­fronting dif­fi­cul­ties that, from my mod­est point of view, I be­lieve are ac­cel­er­at­ed and in­creased" by some in­ter­na­tion­al en­ti­ties and with a for­mat that is prej­u­diced against the "weak­est" na­tions, just like oc­curred in Latin Amer­i­ca, Chavez said.

Socrates, in turn, ex­pressed the "firm will­ing­ness ... (and) com­mit­ment" of his gov­ern­ment and his coun­try's busi­ness­men "not on­ly to ful­fill" all the signed bi­lat­er­al ac­cords, but "al­so to main­tain and con­tin­ue" the co­op­er­a­tion process to "ben­e­fit" Venezuela's de­vel­op­ment.

(Latin Amer­i­can Her­ald Tri­bune)