CUBA, December 19, 2007.- Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Alejandro Gonzalez said on Tuesday that 12 of 16 heads of State or Government have confirmed participation in the Fourth Petrocaribe Summit, scheduled for next Friday in Cienfuegos, Cuba. Gonzalez told a press conference in Havana that the presidents of Venezuela, Antigua and Barbuda, Belize, Dominique, the Dominican Republic, Guyana, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Haiti, Jamaica and Nicaragua would attend the meeting. He added that Raul Castro, first vice president of the Council of State, would head the Cuban delegation. Bahamas, Grenada, Saint Lucia and Surinam are the other member countries of Petrocaribe, a mechanism of energy cooperation among developing countries, based on the principles of solidarity, and special and differentiated treatment of the least developed countries that have little energy resources. Gonzalez pointed out that representatives of Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, who have attended previous meetings, and Guatemala and Honduras, which will attend the summit for the first time, will participate in the Cienfuegos meeting. Other participants are delegates from the Caribbean Community, the Association of Caribbean States and the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States. The summit will be held at the Jagua Hotel, in Cienfuegos, some 155 miles southeast of Havana. Gonzalez added that participants in the meeting will review the implementation of agreements and will exchange opinions on joint efforts to consolidate Petrocaribe as a mechanism of exemplary cooperation and integration in the region. The Cuban deputy foreign minister said the one-day meeting would conclude with the reinauguration of the Camilo Cienfuegos oil refinery, which will process 65,000 barrels of oil a day during the first stage of operations. He went on to say that Petrocaribe was founded on June 29, 2005, during the first energy meeting of heads of State and Government held in Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela, as part of an initiative boosted by the Venezuelan government. The second meeting was held in Montego Bay, Jamaica, in September 2006, and the third one took place in Caracas in August 2007, Gonzalez recalled. He pointed out that Petrocaribe is a strategic mechanism of energy security rather than a commercial or regular instrument to supply oil, thus its importance to mitigate significantly the adverse effects of soaring oil prices on the economies that depend on oil imports. Gonzalez noted that Petrocaribe is an extension of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA) to manage energy resources, which are indispensable to achieve independence and economic development. (Cubaminrex-PL) |