Weekly Report - 06 December 2012 (WR-12-48)

VENEZUELA | Seven new agreements with France. Venezuela’s communications ministry announced last week that Venezuela and France had signed seven new “complementarity and integration” agreements during a high-level bilateral meeting held in Caracas. According to an official statement, the meeting was led by Venezuela’s Science and Technology Minister, Ricardo Menéndez, and France’s minister of social economy, Benoit Hamon, who signed “cooperation, research & innovation and exchange agreements in the industrial, social, mining, science and tourism areas”. Following the meeting, Menéndez and Hamon inaugurated a new car mechanic training centre of French car-marker, Renault, in Los Teques, the Miranda state capital. At the inauguration, Menéndez said that the signing of the agreements opens the possibility that Renault “could soon build a new plant in Venezuela to produce parts and assemble some of its models”. He added that this could also open the way for other French firms that have “expressed their intention to come and establish themselves in Venezuela”.