Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega proposed Monday that poorer Latin American countries be offered special treatment while importing crude and its derivatives from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), local media reported.
Ortega was speaking at a joint press conference in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa with Manuel Zelaya, the president of Honduras.
Ortega said that Haiti, Guyana, Bolivia, Honduras and Nicaragua, the five poorest states in the American continent, should receive privileged treatment from the oil cartel, such as subsidized prices.
President Zelaya also agreed to do his part in engaging OPEC to move in that direction, he said.
Ortega said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has also asked OPEC to adopt subsidy mechanisms for highly impoverished countries.
Food prices are rising continuously in these five Latin American and Caribbean countries, with consequences that no one can foretell, said Ortega.
Developed countries can absorb the impacts of food and oil price increases in the international market, but poor countries cannot, he added.
The Nicaraguan president arrived in Honduras Monday to participate in a funeral ceremony for the late president of the Central American Economic Integration Bank, Harry Brautigam, who died in a plane crash on May 30.
Source:Xinhua
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