Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on Friday expressed confidence in the viability of joint integration efforts for the economic and social future of Latin American peoples.

Chavez, who arrived in Havana on Friday a few hours after his Bolivian counterpart, Evo Morales, was welcomed at the airport by President Fidel Castro and several Cuban government and state leaders.

“Every day we are growing more, (Simon) Bolivar´s project is growing and consolidating,” said the Venezuelan statesman, referring to Bolivia´s announced incorporation into the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).

The leader of the Bolivarian Revolution recalled that he visited Havana a year ago to implement this integration project between Cuba and Venezuela, which included the signing of 49 agreements.

Now Evo is present and he is the president of Bolivia and that confirms that we do nothing but growing, said Chavez, adding, “We are on the right track, building, and ALBA is the road to construction.”

He said that the ALBA and the Trade Agreements for the Peoples (TCP, in Spanish), the latter suggested by Morales, are like two leveling forces.

Chavez noted that the ALBA is against the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement for the Americas), a US-sponsored project that has been strongly rejected by the Latin American peoples.

Meanwhile, the TCP are against the Free Trade Agreements (FTA) that Washington has signed with some Latin American countries.

In that regard, he underlined that the peoples have gradually been joining the ALBA, and recalled the agreements signed with mayors from Nicaragua and El Salvador, and social movements in Brazil and other countries.

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