By NNN-PRENSAS LATINA
Caracas : Latin America will benefit with 18 percent of the soft-credit programme approved by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Fund, Venezuelan Finance Minister Rodrigo Cabezas confirmed on Thursday.
In a statement to Venezolana de Television by telephone from Asturias, where the 28th OPEC Finance Ministerial Meeting concluded today, Cabezas said the programme approved in that forum was supported by $1.8 billion.
Latin America and the Caribbean, which used to receive ten percent, will benefit from $331 million of the amount approved to assist the economies of low and middle developed countries.
Haiti, Bolivia, Guyana, and Nicaragua are among the first group, and the second group is composed of Cuba, Guatemala, Paraguay, Belize, the Dominican Republic, Honduras, and Jamaica, the Venezuelan minister said.
He also said the OPEC Fund and the Venezuelan Social Development Bank agreed to meet in late June in Vienna to shape financial cooperation mechanisms devoted to foster development projects in Latin American and the Caribbean.
The OPEC Fund accepted a project proposed by Iran to produce a medicine of natural origin against AIDS that has been successfully tested in that Asian nation, Cabezas asserted.