China signs 12 deals with Venezuela (3)

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China signs 12 deals with Venezuela (3)

By Wu Jiao (China Daily) 08:39, September 23, 2013

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According to Wu Baiyi, a researcher specializing in the Latin American economy with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, China, as the major oil export market of Venezuela, is very important for the country.

Venezuela needs to guarantee close and increasing economic cooperation to gain more money for its domestic reforms, Wu said.

According to Wang Zhen, China has invested a large sum of money to build refineries and related industries.

"The future of resource cooperation between the two countries is rather optimistic," Wang said.

Venezuela, with 297 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves, has surpassed Saudi Arabia to become the nation with the largest proven crude oil reserves in the world. As one of the main pillars of OPEC, Venezuela also takes an important role in ensuring China's energy security and balance.

Venezuelan Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramirez said earlier that Venezuela exported 626,000 barrels of oil per day to China in the first four months of this year and the figure is expected to reach 1 million barrels per day within two years. In 2012 China imported a total of 5.1 million barrels of oil per day from abroad.

Beijing is now Caracas' second-largest trading partner in Latin America. Bilateral trade was only $350 million in 2000, but it reached $23 billion in 2012 after the two sides initiated several multibillion projects.

During the talks on Sunday, the two leaders also pledged to enhance China-Latin America cooperation.

Since Maduro has just assumed the rotating chair of the South American regional bloc Mercosur, Venezuela is expected to strengthen the dialogue between Mercosur and China through the visit.