Cuba, Venezuela Plan $1 Billion in Joint Projects

HAVANA – Cuba and Venezuela have proposed to undertake about 300 joint economic cooperation projects this year valued at more than $1 billion, Havana’s Minister of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation said Monday.

The Cuban minister said that the two countries carried out projects worth more than $700 million last year as part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

Oil-rich Venezuela, Cuba’s main ally, supplies the island with about 100,000 barrels of crude oil each day in exchange for education and health-care services.

Cuba has helped the South American country’s literacy campaign to teach more than 1 million Venezuelans to read and write and has helped to provide free medical care to more than 17 million residents of Venezuela.