LatAm’s ALBA Countries Seek to Bolster Economic Integration

Ministers of economy from the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) countries met each other to discuss the possibility of building a shared development economic zone.

The talks, held as part of the day-long 7th ALBA Economic Complementation Council in Ecuador’s Southwest city Guayaquil, were aimed at coordinating strategies, policies and projects to build such a zone.

Members are interested in establishing an ALBA economic zone that will include the creation of transnational public companies, said Ecuadorian Economic Policy Coordinating Minister Jeannette Sanchez, Xinhua reported.

Officials from ALBA members of Antigua and Barbuda, Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Ecuador, Venezuela, Saint Vincent, and the Grenadines took part in the meeting.

“We are going to build an economic zone, we are going to evaluate the progress made in our presidents’ stated wishes to take firm steps toward this zone,” Sanchez told the opening ceremony of the meeting.

“We have outlined a map of the region’s products” in an effort to seek “complementarity and to consolidate an economic zone for the development of all our countries,” he added.

Ecuador, which is promoting the initiative, has said the economic zone has a fundamental importance in a world of international instability and uncertainty.

The economic zone “emphasizes the building of a productive structure at a regional level based on complementarity and cooperation, toward the development and maximization of the capabilities of each member country,” the Ecuadorian Finance Ministry said.