Maduro: It's time to take charge and stabilize the oil market
Caracas, January 20, 2016 - AVN- President Nicolas Maduro, called out, this Tuesday, to the Heads of State and Government of the oil-exporting countries, to assume a leading role and strengthen the foundations of the market in order to achieve stability . “The time to take control of the oil market has come, and it´s high time to set new standards for recovery and stability. We can do it, we have the strategic proposals placed in all scenarios of bilateral relations ”, said the head of State during the opening ceremony of the National Council for Productive Economy, at the Teresa Carreno Theater, in Caracas. The President recalled that various strategies have been promoted in order to defend the price of the oil barrel with countries belonging to the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) as well as with the nations that do not belong to the alliance, against the sharp drop of contributions that, in the case of Venezuela, have affected the foreign exchange imports to the nation that shrank by almost 70% last year. Maduro also considered that the economic situation must be taken as an opportunity to wean ourselves from the oil rentier state and strengthen and promote the production of other crops, and thus push the country to build a new model of productive economy. “This is a true opportunity, a real one, to perfomr the transformations and economic changes that our country screams, cries and calls out for a long time”, he said on national radio and television.
In the transition phase in which our country enters, the President highlighted the key role of the Bolivarian Agenda as a guide to follow to “create a new dynamic of dialogue of action, a creative and productive dialogue to find solutions to the problems, to care for and meet the needs of the people of Venezuela”. The Homeland Plan 2013-2019 (Plan de la Patria) is the main vertex of action included in the Bolivarian Alternative Agenda, designed by Commander Hugo Chavez in the mid-90s. “During the 90s, and against the only concept at the time, the neo-liberal concept, this Bolivarian Alternative Agenda has emerged so strong in modesty, humility, and simplicity, as a transforming force, and began to tread a path seeking the light at end of tunnel and building the path of ethical, political, moral, structural, organizational, and economic reconstruction, and putting the social character at the core”, he recalled.