Maravi

Bolivia no longer needs World Bank - Morales

Bolivia no longer needs World Bank - Morales
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Monday May 14, 2007 [04:00]

BOLIVIA no longer needs the IMF or World Bank, the Andean nation's President Evo Morales has said. President Morales said his country no longer needed the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank because the two only contributed to increasing poverty, which led to violent clashes in his country.

"Its Bolivia economy is improving, international reserves are growing and it has nearly five per cent fiscal surplus, the highest in the past 30 years," President Morales said. "This is all owed to the nationalisation of the energy sector and recovery of other natural resources. These are worthwhile struggles begun by social sectors."

Bolivia's announcement that it did not need the Breton Wood institutions comes barely a week after its close ally Venezuela announced it was pulling out of the IMF. Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador, Venezuela have all paid off their debts with the IMF. These Latin American countries refused to have their debts cancelled, as they preferred repaying and eventually declare their sovereignty from the world's two financial-lending institutions.

Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia are now planning on setting up what they call Bank of the South which they say would help build economies of the countries of the south.

And President Morales said Cuba's ideology of solidarity was being fully expressed in Bolivia. According to Radio Havana Cuba, President Morales expressed his respect and admiration for the Cuban doctors working at a new hospital that was officially inaugurated on Friday in the Patankamaya municipality in La Paz, the capital of Bolivia.

"I admire you, because our people were never properly attended to," said President Morales. "Let's salute Fidel (Castro), this comrade who works for education and health care for Latin America with no strings."

President Morales said the true ideology of solidarity was being expressed in Cuba's efforts in Bolivia where 11 ophthalmologic (eye-clinics) centres had restored vision so far to 80,000 Bolivians. Cuban foreign affairs minister Felipe Perez Roque attended the inauguration. The eye-centre was the 22nd facility built in Bolivia with equipment and medical personnel from Cuba.

Labels: BOLIVIA, EVO MORALES, FIDEL CASTRO, IMF, NATIONALISATION, World Bank

posted by MrK @ 4:48 AM