Bolivia, Venezuela ink strategic alliance accord

[Socialistlemur]

1. Includes a Venezuelan request for Bolivia to pay $255 million usd

The Venezuelan government is low on funds, this visit seems to have been aimed at getting paid $255 million the Bolivians owed for diesel deliveries. The other items are fairly meaningless but were highlighted to keep the real reason for the meetings in the background. For example, there was mention of Bolivia sending personnel to the Faja del Orinoco. That's not going anywhere, because Bolivians lack the money to invest, and they also lack the expertise. And to make matters worse, a Bolivian used to the cooler weather in their gas fields isn't about to perform very well in the Faja's heat. Plus Venezuela has plenty of cheap labour. The lithium agreement is another filler item, the Venezuelan government has no personnel with expertise in this field. And so on down the line. What they did was put together a long list of items to cover the demand to be repaid. This item was reviewed in private investor intelligence newsletters before Maduro left for Bolivia. The word is out, they are trying to recall as much cash as possible, and making deals to get loans from several multinationals, to cover their income gap for the time being. But they do need to devalue the currency urgently. I think the new SICAD auction will let us know whether they can survive without a bond default.