Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez will meet with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Minks on Saturday to discuss trade and economic relations between the two countries.
Chavez will fly to the Belarusian capital from Moscow as part of his international tour, which also includes Ukraine and Iran.
Cooperation between Belarus and Venezuela has increased over the past few years. During a meeting in Caracas in March, Lukashenko and Chavez signed an agreement on the supply of up to 80,000 barrels of crude oil per day to Belarus.
Belarus is involved in the exploration of oil deposits in the Latin American country. Since December 2007, Belarusian companies have extracted a total of 1.5 million tonnes of oil from Venezuelan deposits, with revenues exceeding $100 million. The country is planning to increase oil extraction in Venezuela to up to 1 million tonnes per year starting 2010.
Belarus also intends to launch oil extraction in the Junin 1 block in Venezuela's vast Orinoco heavy crude belt.
Besides oil projects, the two countries cooperate in the gas, housing construction, machinery, agricultural, and scientific spheres.
The two countries are also involved in several joint projects with Syria, according to a statement made by Lukashenko after talks with Syrian President Bashar Assad in Minsk in July.
Chavez visited Moscow for talks with his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday and Friday. Several bilateral agreements were signed following the talks, which focused on a range of issues, including space cooperation.
MINSK, October 16 (RIA Novosti)
