LatinNews Daily - 13 December 2023

* Venezuelan business leaders have presented the government with proposals for various economic sectors in the disputed Essequibo region, which lies within Guyana’s internationally recognised borders. Tensions over the Essequibo have flared dramatically since the 3 December Venezuelan referendum in which voters effectively backed an annexation of the territory. Orlando Camacho, the president of the Venezuelan business lobby Fedeindustria, said that President Nicolás Maduro’s government should explore opportunities in Venezuela’s “new state” in the Essequibo, including food production, oil drilling, and telecommunications. The proposals were made as part of a round of consultations that the Maduro administration is carrying out regarding its plans for the Essequibo. Reynaldo Quintero, president of the hydrocarbon business association Cámara Petrolera de Venezuela (CPV), noted the Essequibo’s extensive reserves of fossil fuels and minerals, over which he claimed that “Venezuela not only has geographic rights, but also political rights and economic rights”. Maduro is due to meet Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali in St Vincent & the Grenadines tomorrow (14 December); Ali has said that while he will aim to use the meeting to lower tensions, he will not offer any compromise on Guyana’s territorial boundaries.