Bolivia and
Venezuela agree
energy alliance
LA PAZ.—The presidents of Bolivia and Venezuela
agreed on Wednesday to create a "strategic alliance"
between the state companies YPFB and PDVSA to
develop projects including the industrialization of
Bolivia’s huge reserves of natural gas.
Evo Morales and Hugo Chávez announced the
agreement at close to midnight after a three-hour
meeting in the governmental palace in La Paz, the
night before a meeting of both of them with their
counterparts in Argentina and Brazil.
"Bolivia and Venezuela are always making common
strategies," Chávez affirmed, noting that YPFB and
PDVSA are to undertake large-scale projects related
to the exploitation and industrialization of natural
gas to export electricity, fertilizers and other
products with a high added value.
LABOR STABILITY RESTORED
Meanwhile, the Bolivian executive has restored
its own working day by eliminating free hiring and
increasing the minimum wage by 13.63%.
That translates into the annulment of the 1985
decree that opened the door to the free market model
and open contracting, leading to the layoff of
20,000 miners that year after the privatization of
state mines. That same decree put thousands of
textile workers on the streets.
Vice President Alvaro García Linera affirmed that
both measures are initiating the interment of
neoliberalism to open the way to a social economy
protective of workers.
