Venezuela calls on OPEC to subsidize oil for poor countries

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Thursday called on the OPEC cartel to absorb the costs of the oil import bills of the world’s 50 poorest countries, predicting that the price of crude is “going to continue rising.”

“OPEC, or some of its members, should take the responsibility to supply these countries through special mechanisms, subsidies, donations, agreements. It is not going to make us any richer or poorer,” he said at a meeting of the non-aligned movement at Isla Margarita on Venezuela’s northern coast.

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