South American nations agree to start $20B bank

September 27th, 2009

Seven South American nations on Saturday signed an agreement to create a Bank of the South with startup capital of $20 billion.

The development bank has been touted by socialist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a counterweight to U.S.-influenced international lenders and the region’s finance ministers in May agreed to fund it with $7 billion.

Leaders including Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Argentina’s Cristina Fernandez formally signed on to the pact and announced that the starting capital would be $20 billion.

“We’re signing (the agreement) tonight so that we can get started,” Chavez said.

It was unclear how much each country would contribute, but under the previous $7 billion figure announced in May, Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil were to have each pledged $2 billion, while Uruguay, Ecuador, Paraguay and Bolivia were to have chipped in smaller amounts.

Chavez also offered to help create a “South-South bank” with African countries in the future.

http://hosted.ap.org/

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