LatinNews Daily - 24 July 2023

* Venezuela and Turkey have signed an agreement for the reciprocal promotion and protection of investments, in which the governments of both countries agreed to strengthen partnerships in areas including mining, energy, defence, maritime and air transport, trade, finance, security, science and technology, industry, and agriculture. Venezuela’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, was cited by local media as saying that the agreement should increase annual bilateral trade to US$3bn. Turkey is an increasingly important trade partner for Venezuela; during a visit to Ankara in June 2022, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro and Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan noted that trade flows had increased from US$150m in 2019 to US$850m in 2021, and announced a goal of increasing that figure to US$1bn by 2023.