S America-Africa summit opens in Venezuela

September 27, 2009 01:09:27 PM

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The second South America-Africa summit opened here Saturday, with heads of state from both regions seeking to sign key accords on a range of issues, including energy cooperation.

The summit, which follows a first meeting in 2006 in Nigeria, is being on the scenic resort of Isla Margarita, where Venezuelan military personnel have set up checkpoints and banned weapons as regional leaders arrive.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has long sought to improve relations among and with non-Western nations, opened the meeting Saturday.

Some 60 countries are being represented.

Energy infrastructure development and joint oil project cooperation are expected be central issues during the meeting, with a final declaration expected to include a number of specific joint committments.

"I'm sure that we will have a series of agreements on this issue that will be very important," said Venezuelan Minister of Energy and Petroleum Rafael Ramirez.

He added that cooperation agreements will seek to build up domestic energy capacity and resources,

"All the energy infrastructure, both in South America and in Africa, was designed and developed to meet the energy requirements of the industrial powers that our countries were satellites of," he said.