Vietnam and Venezuela set up 200 million dollar joint fund

[amyrose2712]

CARACAS (AFP) - Vietnam's president and Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez signed a deal for a 200-million-dollar joint fund and 15 cooperation projects, during the first visit here by a head of state from the communist nation.

The fund is similar to deals Venezuela has with allies China and Iran and will finance joint projects, President Chavez said after meeting with Nguyen Minh Triet, at the end of a two-day visit, at his Miraflores Palace late Thursday.

"We won't lack resources. While right now there's a worldwide crisis of funds, a credit crisis, we're creating funds and banks and finance mechanisms," Chavez said.

A first joint project using the fund -- for an energy-saving light bulb factory due to produce 74 million bulbs per year -- was already under construction in western Venezuela , Chavez said.

Triet and Chavez also signed 15 cooperation deals, in fields from technology to tourism and energy, including the setting up of a joint venture to develop existing reserves in eastern Venezuela's oil-rich Orinoco basin.

Since Chavez toured Vietnam in 2006, his government has stepped up bilateral relations with the Southeast Asian nation, whose Communist Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh visited Caracas early last year.

http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/5163427/vietnam-venezuela-set-200-million-dollar-joint-fund/