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Iran, Venezuela in joint bank venture
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (left) and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (right)
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TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: A couple of oil-rich countries announced this week they're joining together to launch a development bank. Those countries: Iran and Venezuela. From the Americas Desk at WLRN, Marketplace's Dan Grech reports on these strange bedfellows.
Dan Grech: At first glance, Iran and Venezuela don't appear to have much in common. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez calls himself a 21st century socialist. Meanwhile:
Michael McFaul: The mullahs in Iran are not leftists. I mean, these guys are very conservative. But what they share is this anti-Americanism.
That's Michael McFaul, a political science professor at Stanford University. He says Venezuela and Iran have cemented their political alliance through joint ventures in energy, agriculture, even physical education.
McFaul: It's a bit reminiscent to me of the Cold War, where you have these states joining together, believing that they're fighting some ideological struggle against the United States.
The new bi-national development bank will be based in Tehran and have $1.2 billion in start-up funds. It'll finance projects in areas such as infrastructure, housing, and technology.
I'm Dan Grech for Marketplace.
Some ten years ago I personally contacted GAP in San Francisco, CA and asked them why they didn't have any stores in Latin America -- more exactly, Mexico City and Sao Paulo, Brazil. GAP'S Strategic Planning Dept told me their focus was on the U.S. market but also had plans to expand Singapore and Paris operations. Mexico and Brazil were not in their plans.
This is how myopia undersmines American businesses.
Francisco Sousa
(703)785-9248
P.S. Not relevant to the GAP story, I also contacted Four Seasons Hotels in Toronto, Canada about setting up a franchise in Brazil. They didn't blink. Their management explored the opportunity promptly and set the wheels in motion. The rest is history ...
