March 4, 2006
Swiss Ambassador to Venezuela : " Venezuela is a reliable country from a financial point of view"

(Ven-Global News / Venezuelan Vice-presidency) - "Swiss Ambassador to Venezuela, Walter Suter, pointed out that the Venezuelan government is determined to carry out many important financial and infrastructure projects

Swiss Ambassador to Venezuela , Walter Suter, explained last Monday - after meeting with Venezuelan Vice-president, José Vicente Rangel - that 'Venezuela is a reliable country from a financial point of view'.

He added that 'the Venezuelan government is determined to carry out many important financial and infrastructure projects'. Therefore, 'we are willing to increase investment here. It is very interesting for us.'

The Swiss diplomat stated that he visited 'Venezuelan vice-president in order to evaluate our bilateral relations in different fields. We do not have to deal with any conflict; on the contrary, Venezuela and Switzerland have had very good relations.'

Suter announced that from May 15 to May 17 'the Swiss Vice-minister for Bilateral Economic Relations, Jurg Reding, will visit Venezuela to meet with Venezuelan Minister of Integration and Foreign Trade, Gustavo Márquez and other institutions in order to establish investments or business between the two countries."

'Currently, the commercial exchange is relatively modest since it represents around USD $100 millions. We can increase Swiss companies' direct productive investments, especially those that have been here for a long time. We are trying to interest new Swiss companies in investing here to create more jobs. We are working together with the Ministry of Integration and Foreign Trade on the organization of business and investment conferences,' he said.

Swiss ambassador pointed out that he and the Venezuelan vice-president 'reviewed the projects we had already begun, we are still in a first phase, though; but we are determined to make them real. In this case, I refer to the cooperation regarding Civil Defense'.

'The Swiss Civil Defense advises Venezuelan Civil Defense in order to create a humanitarian force for international cooperation. In this sense, we have a long experience (over 30 years) and we are going to organize a training course to be held in May. We have also talked about strengthening cooperation with the Venezuelan Supreme Court in order to strengthen the state democratic institutions', he added".