Libya and Venezuela may work together more on oil projects and increasing aid to poorer states of South America and Africa, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalgham said.Libya, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries' eighth-largest oil producer and holder of Africa's largest crude-oil reserves, and Venezuela, OPEC's third-largest producer, will study cooperation in oil, investments, and agriculture, Shalgham said, cited by the official news service of Libya, JANA. The report didn't name any specific project.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi agreed at a meeting yesterday in Tripoli to ``study the possibility of providing an assistance to the poor and needy in Africa and Latin America, especially in the fields of health and education,'' Shalgham said.
Surging oil prices may slow the economic growth of the oil- poor nations of Africa, the Tunis-based African Development Bank said in a report four days ago.
The 53 nation-member African Union plans to discuss in July in Gambia a Libyan proposal to set up a fund that will help its oil-poor members access and refine petroleum produced by the continent's exporters like OPEC members Libya, Algeria and Nigeria, and non-OPEC member Angola, so that they can save on the cost of transport and intermediaries.
Venezuela is already spending on refineries in South America and sending subsidized oil to Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Cuba and Uruguay, in return for agricultural and industrial goods and, in the case of Cuba, medical doctors.
Chavez's visit to Libya was the last leg of a tour in Europe and North Africa.