by OLIVIA KROTH
President Hugo Chávez with Zhang Xiaoqiang, vice-director of the Chinese National Development and Reform Commission. Since 1998, when Chávez was elected President, trade between China and Venezuela has jumped from 200 to 16,000 million dollars in 2011.
Since 2009, a boost in Sino-Venezuelan cooperation can be remarked in agriculture, energy, housing, telecommunications, trade, transport and tourism.
Great energy projects have seen the light of day during the last three years, from drilling oil in Venezuela’s Orinoco Basin to creating a Sino-Venezuelan company to manufacture oil tankers and an oil refinery. “Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world”, says President Hugo Chávez. “All the oil China needs is here in Venezuela”.
The Faja del Orinoco contains 520 billion barrels of crude oil. The Orinoco oil belt has been divided into blocs, where oil is extracted by Sino-Venezuelan joint ventures in which Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA keeps at least 60 percent controlling share.
Officials from PDVSA meet regularly with Chinese oil industry colleagues to plan further steps of oil extraction, building petroleum platforms, oil refineries and a fleet of oil tankers.
Currently Venezuela exports 400.000 barrels per day to China, the aim is to reach one million in 2025.
Hugo Chávez speaks of “gradualness and joint development”. Sino-Venezuelan projects constitute part of a “strategic long-term development plan, to be implemented in several stages until 2025”, according to the Venezuelan President.
China’s Vice-President, Xi Jinping, says of Hugo Chávez that “his presence is a very positive attribute for commercial development between China and Venezuela.”
Hugo Chávez has turned to Big Sister in order to diversify his country’s oil export markets. During his presidency Venezuela has become the 5th largest Latin American economy partner for China and its 4th largest oil supplier.
The Venezuelan President loves China and is very impressed by Big Sister’s economic development. He lauds the Asian giant as being “the greatest motor that exists to drive the world beyond the crisis of capitalism. Nobody can doubt that the center of gravity of the world has been moved towards Beijing”.
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