Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is spearheading the revival of stalled efforts to establish the Bank of the South, a regional development fund that could help soften the blow of the global economic downturn in Latin America.
The bank, which is intended to reduce dependence on traditional sources of credit like the IMF and World Bank, could be launched as soon as May with a startup capital of $10bn, seven of the region’s finance ministers agreed in a meeting in Caracas on Monday.
