The Bolivian government are pushing ahead with its moves to re-nationalize its energy industry, ordering foreign financial companies to surrender control over shares they administer for a public pension fund, reports the World Bank press review Tuesday.
The Bolivian government Monday gave Spanish Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA, or BBVA, and Futuro SA of Swiss Zurich Financial Services three days to hand over the assets they administer for a fund used to pay pensions.
The move would immediately give the government control over a large, but minority block of shares in three energy companies. The shares are worth an estimated 1,5 billion US dollar (ca. 9 milliarder DKR), according to Andres Soliz, Bolivias hydrocarbons minister.
At the start of an 11-day UN international forum on indigenous peoples attended by hundreds of delegates from around the world Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca Cespedes said that “We are going to recover all of our national resources”.
– The multinational companies are not about to leave Bolivia. They will continue to make a profit, and in no way are we impacting on their profit, he said.
– We are simply changing the rules of the game which up until then were to their benefit. The rules of the game which did not allow the income generated to be to the benefit of our people, Choquehuanca noted.
Choquehuanca said subsequent nationalizations would target land, forestry, timber and water resources. – We are going to redistribute land in an equitable (ligelig) and just manner for the benefit of landless peasants while ensuring that big landowners abide by the law and serve an economic purpose, Choquehuanca explained.
Bolivian President Evo Morales took the opportunity of a speech in Strasbourg, France Monday before the European Parliament to defend his decision to nationalize his countrys oil and gas reserves. He stressed that assuming control of the Andean nations massive reserves of natural gas is crucial to his governments anti-poverty policies.
– To distribute the wealth, we have the obligation to nationalize it, Morales said, though stressing that “no one is being expelled, nor is anyone being expropriated”.
– Any company that invests in my country has every right to recover its investment and to profits, but not to control. They will be partners, not owners of our natural resources, he said.
Meanwhile, Mexico will dispatch a technical team to Bolivia to discuss the possibility of participating in the energy development plan related to Bolivian gas, Mexican Foreign Minister Luis Ernesto Derbez said Monday.
The decision was made by Mexican President Vicente Fox and his Bolivian counterpart on the sideline of the fourth EU-Latin American Summit last week in Vienna, Austria.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
