January 11:
DUBAI: Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Venezuela’s president he backed coordinated action between Tehran and Caracas to reverse a rapid fall in global oil prices which he described as a “political ploy hatched by common enemies”.
President Nicholas Maduro is on a tour of fellow Opec countries to lobby for higher oil prices, which hit new lows last week below US$50 per barrel, nearly half of what they were back in June 2014.
“The strange drop in oil prices in such a short time is a political ploy and unrelated to the market. Our common enemies are using oil as a political ploy and they definitely have a role in this severe fall in prices,” Khamenei said in talks with Maduro.
“(Khamenei) endorsed an agreement between the presidents of Iran and Venezuela for a coordinated campaign against the slide in oil prices”, the official IRNA news agency said.
Venezuela’s economy contracted in the first three quarters of 2014 and its international reserves have deteriorated sharply due to the tumbling oil prices.
The decline has spurred concerns that Venezuela may default on its foreign bonds, which in turn has pushed its bond yields to the highest of any emerging market nation. Maduro has denied his country will default.
Maduro later arrived in Riyadh, Opec’s leading oil producer Saudi Arabia, received by Deputy Crown Prince Moqren bin Abdul Azi, the Saudi Press Agency said. – Agencies
Source: www.thestar.com.my/Business/Business-News/2015/01/12/Iran-vows-to-help-Venezuela-to-stem-oil-price-fall/?style=biz
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