Venezuela Ratifies Foreign Investment Security

CARACAS - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ratified on Sunday that there is security to invest in his country, and denied campaigns that are spreading a distorted reality.

Media lies blatantly, when they say there are no real conditions or legal security for investments in Venezuela, assured the head of state in his usual Sunday column entitled Las Lineas de Chavez (Chavez' Lines).

The statesman recalled the recent announcement by the partners that will work in the Carabobo block in the Orinoco Oil Belt, the largest hydrocarbon reserve on the planet.

The projects were awarded to a consortium composed of Spanish Repsol Oil Company, Malaysian Petronas Company, India's ONGC, Indian Oil Corporation, and another group shaped by companies as US Chevron, Japan's Mitsubishi and Inpex and Venezuelan Suelopetrol.

It is expected that only in the first six years investments will increase to $80 billion, helping revitalize the economy, generate thousands of jobs and develop integrally this vast region and the country, Chavez said on February 10.

"We are making history with this great project, which will extend the cooperation between nations, based on friendship, equality and sovereignty."