Proposal for the Creation of the "Petro" Currency Should Not Be Seen in Isolation

Caracas, 31 Mar (ABN) -- The proposal of the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez Frías, to create a new currency called the "Petro" should not be seen in isolation from what is happening in today's global economy, said the governor of the Central Bank of Venezuela (BCV), José Félix Rivas Alvarado, on Tuesday, in an interview broadcast by TeleSur.

The BCV governor noted that the initiative should not be isolated from the proposal of the president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, to create a currency for trade called Sucre.

Rivas Alvarado said that, if these approaches are analyzed separately, "this mistake must be avoided."

"These proposals are accompanied by the proposal for production that has to do with the financing of development, how to channel capital flows, which remain open veins of Latin America, flowing from the countries of the South to the North," explained the BCV governor.

For Rivas Alvarado, such initiatives are for the purpose of pursuing the autonomy of Latin America, which is experiencing a unique opportunity.

He explained: "For that purpose, sovereign economic policies" accompanied by "an initiative for energy integration and development finance that is different from the prevailing financial architecture" are "important."

The BCV governor said that new approaches must foster "not the logic of the valorization of capital on the global level but the development of a regional pole of power."

He also emphasized diversity among nations when it comes to discussions about the economic crisis, and efforts to overcome it should not be made solely from "the financial point of view" but must encompass the cultural and productive ones.

"As President Evo Morales said, cultures and peoples have burst onto the scene.  Economists don't take this reality into account in their models, but it exists.  It's a historical heritage," the BCV governor illustrated his point.