Text, as published by Brazilian presidency web site on 14 February, of speech by President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on the occasion of signing various cooperation agreements between Brazil and Venezuela, in Caracas that day.

"My Dear Comrade Hugo Chávez, President of the Bolívarian Republic of Venezuela,

My friends, ministers of the Venezuelan government,

My comrades, ministers of my government and other comrades who make up our delegation,

My dear Venezuelan Ambassador to Brazil,

My dear Brazilian Ambassador to Venezuela,

My friends, Brazilian businessmen,

Business leaders of Venezuela,

Directors of the business associations of both countries,

My friends [Brazilian Foreign] Minister Celso Amorim, [Venezuelan Foreign] Minister Ali Rodríguez:

'Our most ambitious integration plans are beginning to materialize'

It is with great satisfaction that I return to Venezuela, where I am always received with affection by the people and their officials. Today is a historic day in the relationship between Brazil and Venezuela. Our countries have never been so closely united by the bonds of brotherhood. Our most ambitious integration plans are beginning to materialize.

The joint communique which we signed today establishes a broad strategic alliance between Venezuela and Brazil.

This association can and should serve as the model for the integration which we wish to promote with our other partners in the region. It is based on a political decision made at the highest levels of government, with the active participation of our business sectors. It translates into a concrete and realistic work programme the execution of which we shall monitor daily.

It is symptomatic, my dear President Chávez and Venezuelan friends, that in order to prepare this strategic alliance we revived the activities of the Binational High Level Commission, or Coban, which had not convened since February 2000. From now on, the agenda of cooperation between our two countries will recover all its vigour.

Our strategic alliance is solidly supported on three pillars: political dialogue, the expansion of trade in goods and services and the integration of infrastructure. We have just defined ambitious objectives in all these areas.

'Tremendous importance of our association in the energy sector'

I should like to stress the tremendous importance of our association in the energy sector. What Petrobras [Brazilian Petroleum Corporation] and PDVSA [Venezuelan Petroleum, SA] could potentially accomplish together in Brazil, Venezuela and third countries is incalculable. We are establishing partnerships in the fields of exploration, refinement, transport and sales. We shall work together to produce renewable fuels such as biodiesel and ethanol.

We shall also explore in full the complementary aspects of our systems for generating hydroelectricity. Today the north of Brazil is already the recipient of the excellent services provided by Edelca [Caroni River Electrification Project]. The establishment of a joint commission on energy will ensure the regular monitoring of these projects.

We shall also, with the decisive participation of our private sector, make progress in coal mining and enhance the complementary qualities of our economies in the iron and steel sector.

Brazil has an abundance of minerals, and Venezuela an abundance of the energy needed to process these minerals. Together, we shall add value and scale to our production processes.

Infrastructure projects and financing, aviation and military cooperation

Another sector that deserves to be emphasized in the alliance that we are forming is infrastructure. We shall continue to promote the active participation of Brazilian companies in important transport projects in Venezuela. And we shall continue to implement innovative financing mechanisms for these ventures. This is something we should make progress with in the sphere of South America.

We also have significant plans for the aviation sector and a platform for cooperation in the military area. We will seek to cooperate not just in the surveillance and defence of the Amazon Region and its resources but also in joint scientific and technological development. Proof of this are the understandings reached for Embraer [Brazilian Aeronautics Company] to re-equip the Venezuelan Air Force and about exploring the possibility of holding joint military exercises in the Amazon Region.

Collaboration against drugs, crime; cooperation in health, education

We shall continue to collaborate in the fight against drug trafficking, organized crime, terrorism and in protecting our extensive common border.

That is also why we have decided to cooperate more closely in terms of social policies, with emphasis on health and education.

Bilateral trade and agreement to prevent double taxation

My dear comrade Chávez,

Our economies have shown clear signs of recovery. Venezuela and Brazil have significantly increased their bilateral trade.

We hope to exceed, now in 2005, the figure of 3bn dollars. The figure I had here was 2bn dollars but, since business leaders were more optimistic and spoke of 3bn dollars and I am feeling very optimistic at this moment, I prefer the figure of 3bn dollars. As long as we Brazilians realize that trade relations are a two-way street: we sell, but we also buy, so that there is equilibrium in the two countries' balance of trade, because otherwise this imbalance could harm the healthy relationship we want to have with Venezuela. We want to make our interchange more balanced.

We are also facilitating investments in both directions, with the signing of an agreement to prevent double taxation.

South American unity and Amazon region cooperation

At the regional level, we share the desire to strengthen South American unity.

When we overcome our big economic and social challenges, we are affirming the self-confidence of the continent.

The building and strengthening of the South American Community of Nations and the Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization are essential instruments for the promotion and defence of our region's interests in the international arena.

We are, in this way, helping to change the correlation between international forces in order to shape a new global economic and trade geography, against a backdrop of a world at peace, one that is politically more democratic.

And at this point I should like to take this opportunity to thank President Hugo Chávez for the swift support he gave us both concerning the UN Security Council and in the dispute in the WTO Director-General's Office.

Venezuelan democracy; overcoming Venezuelan-Colombian crisis

My dear Hugo Chávez,

I would like, through you, to congratulate the Venezuelan people once again for their firm commitment to democracy. Venezuelan society has succeeded in overcoming, in a calm and sovereign manner, some very difficult times. Brazil followed these events closely and with great attention. Our solidarity was never wanting.

I also want to offer my congratulations to the Venezuelan government and people for overcoming the recent difficulties in Venezuelan-Colombian relations. The two countries and the whole of South America demonstrated their political maturity once again. We thus reaffirmed our ability to resolve disputes on our own and by following the peaceful path of dialogue.

Contribution of business sector; launching a cycle of prosperity

My friends,

I hail the commitment and vision of our business sector. Its participation was and will continue to be fundamental to the partnership projects that we have undertaken.

The efforts of everyone, government and society, made this immense platform of cooperation that we launch today possible.

I am aware that we must still overcome many challenges in building the strategic alliance between Venezuela and Brazil.

I am certain that the trail that we are blazing will lead us towards the construction of a more united South America, committed to eradicating hunger, poverty and the huge social disparities that persist on our continent.

Democracy is a permanent process of construction. To speed it up, we have to launch a cycle of prosperity with high growth rates, solid employment and income-distribution policies and initiatives which guarantee effective social inclusion. These are the steps that must be taken to guarantee sovereignty and self-determination.

Birth of the 'need for Brazil to turn towards South America'

My dear President Chávez,

During the past years we have forged a strong friendship. Our mutual solidarity is today enhanced with the establishment of our strategic alliance.

Without stretching this out for much longer, I would like, my dear Brazilian and Venezuelan ministers, Brazilian and Venezuelan business leaders, my dear President Chávez and friends in the media, to say one more thing.

A long time ago, I was a candidate for the presidency of the Republic of Brazil and I visited a leading research institute for a debate with some top Brazilian experts. And there, for the first time, I learnt more about a reality of which, until then, I had barely been aware: the map of Brazil was showing me that in 500 years of history, our entire commercial, political and development relationship was turned entirely towards Europe. And then, in the 20th century, also towards the United States. This is what the map of Brazil clearly shows.

It was only after 1956 that President Juscelino [Kubitschek] decided to take Brazil into the Centre-West. Until then our development had occurred along the coast, following the same path that our colonizers had followed 500 years earlier.

And it was at that meeting, President Chávez, that what was almost an obsession was born regarding the need for Brazil to turn towards South America. It made no sense for Brazil to continue to look to the developed world without also looking to its brothers with whom it shares practically 15,000 km of dry border.

This idea of looking to the rich world and forgetting the poor was the rationale of a political elite in Brazil. They were capable of looking at Europe without seeing the African continent. They were capable of looking at the United States without seeing Venezuela, without seeing Surinam, without seeing Guyana.

It wasn't possible to go on believing in this vision of the world.

When we took over the government we came to a decision: we shall be much stronger, have more political influence, if we succeed in uniting those like us, the poor, the ones who are developing, those who are not part of our planet's so-called "rich world".

And you know of our dedication to South America, which has brought us to this point.

Belief in creating the South American Community of Nations

That is why, for me, today's meeting cannot be seen as just yet another meeting and even less as something essentially commercial; it is more than that.

The day that South America has the roads it needs interconnecting the countries; the day that South America has the waterways it needs interconnecting the countries; the day that America has telecommunications systems interconnecting the countries; and the day that South America has a group of leaders and a large part of the population who believe in South America, we shall have realized the dream of many who believed in this before us, who fought and died without seeing their dream come true.

Possibly, Chávez, neither you nor I will come to see the full scope of this project. It isn't always the pioneer who is able to benefit from the first harvest in the newly-discovered land. What is important is that he should do things properly, so that those who come after him can provide continuity and do better than we are doing.

I have no doubt, Chávez, that there are people among us, in Brazil and in Venezuela, who think that there is no future in what we are doing, that we need to deepen our relationships only with the rich countries. We shall be criticized. And this makes me happy, happy because I am doing something in which I believe; I am doing it together with businessmen who believe; I am maintaining relations with leaders who believe.

And, furthermore, we are discovering a new world. Those who used to say that we should not have relations with developing countries, all they have to do is look at Brazil's export figures to see how much trade has grown with South America, with Africa, with India, with the Arab world, with China and how much it could grow if not operating as Brazil, but as the South American Community of Nations. It is my biggest dream to be able to negotiate together, not as one nation but as a group of nations, so that we can ensure for our people the possibility, this century, of acquiring full citizenship.

It isn't much, Chávez: it's living, working, eating, studying, having access to culture and leisure, that is, it is so little that everyone could have it.

Meeting of ministers of the social area, representatives of social movements suggested

I think that the gesture we are making here today, with the participation of important business leaders from both countries, cannot stop here, Chávez. Our next step will be to do in the social area what we have done today with the businessmen, that is, to organize a meeting of the social ministers, of the representatives of our social movements, so that, with the same degree of seriousness with which we are conducting this meeting, with the same respect that we have received from business leaders and that we bestowed on them, we can do the same with the social movement, because integration is more than this.

Integration involves the free movement of our peoples, the distribution of the riches we produce and, above all, the fact of knowing how to use correctly the experiences that were successful in each country.

I am going to reiterate something here, Chávez. You, who have in Bolívar your life's compass, will perceive that if we continue to do things in the way we are now, with daring but also with tranquillity, you can be sure that [hero of the Latin American struggle for independence] Simón Bolívar will be saying: 'It was worth it to die believing in the integration of South America.'

Thank you very much".