Venezuela will now be importing rice from Suriname as part of the PetroCaribe agreement.
This deal was hammered out following a lightning visit by Venezue-lan President Nicolas Maduro to Paramaribo yesterday. Maduro’s visit was one of several to Caricom countries this weekend and came in the backdrop of efforts by Caracas to mobilise support for its position in the simmering border controversy with Guyana.
Surinamese media reported last evening that during the half-day visit Maduro and his counterpart, President Desi Bouterse of Suriname agreed to a “new and better stage of bilateral cooperation.”
yesterday. (Photo from Telesur/AVN)
Reports out of Suriname noted that “it was agreed that Suriname will export more rice to Venezuela and that Suriname can continue to rely on the PetroCaribe deal in which Venezuela provides oil at an attractive price to Caribbean countries.”
Suriname had been in discussion since last year with Venezuela on a rice arrangement. The rice deal with Suriname comes on the cusp of the end of a similar deal with Guyana. Venezuela earlier this year told Georgetown that a lucrative rice barter arrangement would come to an end in November to allow other South Ameri-can rice producers to benefit. The end of the arrangement came amid high tension over a maritime decree issued by Maduro claiming most of Guyana’s Atlantic waters. Guyana now has to find new markets for its booming rice industry.
Venezuela’s state-run TelesurTV stated yesterday that the two leaders agreed that PetroCaribe will be the base of their bilateral relations going forward.
As a result of the Maduro’s visit, a commission from Suriname will travel to Caracas in the coming days to finalise trade and rice purchasing agreements.
PetroCaribe is an arrangement established by Venezuela in 2005 to sell oil on soft terms to its Caribbean allies. In July, Stabroek News reported that the rice barter component of the deal which had existed between Guyana and Venezuela since 2009 will conclude in November of this year. Previously the agreement between the two countries was renewed annually.
At the time of this announcement, Guyana’s Prime Minister Moses Nagamootoo referred to “Venezuela’s position of the non-renewal of the PetroCaribe barter agreement [as]an act of economic sanction against Guy-ana.”
The relationship between the Guyana and Venezuela had been deteriorating since May, when Maduro issued the decree laying claim to most of Guyana’s territorial waters along the Essequibo Coast. That Decree was subsequently withdrawn and replaced with a new one that was still offensive. The initial decree was issued after United States-based oil company Exxon Mobil announced that it has discovered significant evidence of oil in the Stabroek Block offshore Demerara.
Maduro was also scheduled to visit Antigua and St Lucia this weekend.
