On Wednesday, the 7th Meeting of Ministers of Finance and Economy of the Ibero-American Conference was held to discuss financial needs in the face of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Vice-president Delcy Rodríguez represented Venezuela at the meeting. She is also in charge of the Ministry of People’s Power for Economy, Finance and Foreign Trade.
At the virtual meeting, Venezuela condemned the inequality dominating international financial mechanisms. «Countries like Venezuela did not receive anything and cannot access any mechanism because of the political bias in the International Monetary Fund against Venezuela, » she said.
Rodríguez regretted that the IMF, instead of promoting unity in the current circumstances faced by humankind, is devoting itself to practicing discrimination. «Since the pandemic broke out, the IMF has allocated USD 650 billion, to which only a few countries have had access. Now I wonder: Is this a mechanism to exert domination and political discrimination against some countries? »
At the virtual meeting, attended by the 22 Ibero-American countries and representatives of multilateral organizations, Rodríguez quoted IMF’s official data and explained this organization has allocated resources for 33 Latin American and Caribbean countries since the pandemic broke out, and out of these 33 countries, only 20 of them received financial benefits. The rest of them were excluded and discriminated due to political reasons.
«Out of these 20 countries, 87% of these resources were allocated for only 4 countries, while 91% of financial assistance in the form of non-refundable cooperation was received by only 5 countries. » This official data from the International Monetary Fund shows the terrible inequality and deep imbalance, said Vice-president Rodríguez.
The Venezuelan vice-president insisted on the need of promoting cooperation and international unity to face the financial challenges of the pandemic. «Inequality is not the way to overcome this crisis. We need to think about it and rethink it from the perspective of the union of our countries and people so that rich countries cooperate with those countries in most need of special drawing rights. »
Rodríguez highlighted that spaces such as this Ibero-American meeting must become a platform for reflecting on issues that must be corrected in the international sphere to continue facing the problems caused by COVID-19.
The 7th Ibero-American Meeting of Ministers of Finance and Economy is the first one organized by the Dominican Republic in its role as Pro Tempore Secretariat of the Ibero-American Conference.
The Dominican Republic will host the 28th Ibero-American Summit of Heads of State and Government to be held in 2022.