Venezuela-Iran Presidents open Bank

Venezuelan President Hugo Cavez and his Iranian peer Mahmoud Ahmadineyad opened on Friday in this capital the binational Venezuelan-Iranian bank, as an important step to face up to the world crisis.

“The bank has been born. It is a historic event. Imperialism is sinking and a new world is rising from its ashes.

Venezuela and Iran are creating solutions for our people’s independence and happiness,” Chavez asserted in the opening ceremony.

Ahmadineyad asserted that creating this bank proves that the World is experiencing a new stage, where Iran and Venezuela have established their relations, based on brotherhood.

The financial institution will start in a first stage with a $200 million capital, composed of a $100 million contribution by the Iranian government and the same amount by the Venezuelan State.

The binational bank president will be Persian Kourahs Parvizian, while Venezuelan Nelson Ortega will occupy the vice presidency.

Parvizian said the bank’s operations will increase both nations’ cooperation in the development projects, and its objective is to shape a “currency basket” that favours trade between both countries.

“Having created this bank, Venezuela and Iran can play an important role in the new world,” Parvizian said.

Both governments have sealed 205 cooperation agreements up to the present, in spheres as agriculture, technology, culture, science, and energy, and in the latter, both nations are founders of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Country (OPEC), created in 1960.

Chavez said all those important steps show that the unipolar world is already finished and that on a multipolar world, Venezuela and Iran are taking actions to help strengthen relations between the countries of the South.The visitor arrived in Tehran on Wednesday night, after participating in the Arab-South American Summit in Qatar, and would pay an official visit to Japan after concluding his stay in this capital.

- Prensa Latina