Nelson Motta
Reporter - Agência Brasil

Brasília - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is traveling Sunday (13) to Caracas to launch a broad strategic cooperation alliance between Brazil and Venezuela. President Lula considers the working meeting he will have in Venezuela of great importance for the process of integration in such sectors as mining, natural gas, petroleum, and infrastructure and telecommunications projects.

"We're going to do the same thing in Colombia and in other countries in which integration is no longer a campaign speech but part of the way we deal with real things, day to day," President Lula remarked.

Marco Aurélio Garcia, Presidential advisor for International Issues, explained that cooperation with Venezuela will be profitable for Brazil, as well as contributing to continental integration. "With this gesture, Brazil will consolidate one of its major political goals, which is the constitution of a South American community of nations," he said.

The Ministry of Foreign Relations informed that during the President's visit, the two countries will delineate a serious expression of concrete cooperation programs and activities. Various memoranda of understanding should be signed between institutions of the two governments.

Translation: David Silberstein