[NYTr] ALBA Nations Agree New Projects

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Prensa Latina, Havana
http://www.plenglish.com

ALBA Nations Agree New Projects

Havana, Sep 21 (Prensa Latina) The ALBA, Bolivarian Alternative for the
Americas, foreign ministers agreed in Havana on Friday to boost six new
regional projects, and creation of a permanent secretary's office of
that mechanism.

These and other agreements were announced on Friday, during the closing
session of the organization's second minister meeting, in which they
also approved three political declarations, and to boost the ALBA Bank.

Foreign Ministers Felipe Perez Roque, Cuba, Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela,
and David Choquehuanca, Bolivia, and Nicaraguan Emergency Social Fund
Chair Minister Nelson Artola presided over their respective countries'
delegations.

Out of the 39 ALBA plans, 18 are priorities, including creation of a
regional health register, a multinational basic literacy teaching
program, infrastructure development, and telecommunication improvement.

Those plans also include creation of a joint agricultural food,
program, establishment of a food export-import company, and a center
for sciences.

Cuban Vice president Carlos Lage, who was in charge of giving the
event's closing speech, asserted that a long, but stimulating path for
the member countries can be discerned.

The ALBA emerges to foster integration of regional nations, not
markets, to put our peoples, human beings, in the first place, not the
economic development figures, the vice president said.

He said the ALBA should break capitalist dogmas and be guided by
solidarity, straying away from selfish concepts, as chauvinism, and
nationalism.

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