Ecuador for Greater OPEC Geopolitical Role

Riyadh, Nov 18 (Prensa Latina) Ecuador s president Rafael Correa gave Sunday his support to the proposal of his Venezuelan peer Hugo Chavez for strengthening the geopolitical role of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) during the third summit of the bloc that ends today.

Correa said that "trying to deny that vision is to deny reality," he affirmed and added "We need a political vision to take adequate public policies, adequate collective policies, in order to manage adequately a strategic resource such as oil." As for the idea of considering a revision of the currency used by OPEC for its crude transactions, he approved analyzing that issue.

"If we continue operating in a weak currency as the dollar, which has recently fallen sharply, we would be transfering our wealth to the countries with more stable currencies," he said.

As much as I consider that just prices "has been a debate for centuries" in economical science, he asserted producers should have an adequate compensation, above all if the main consumers are the rich countries.

"What should be sought is a compensation for poor oil importing countries so as not to increase their poverty," assured the Ecuadorean Executive.

Also, Correa advanced that Ecuador will present a proposal to create a special tax on consumer countries, which will serve to study the effects of oil on the environment and global warming "and above all compensate the poorest countries so they can fight that phenomenon." The summit is attended by delegations of the 13 member countries of OPEC which represent about 40 percent of world oil production.