China, Venezuela sign agreements on oil, hydropower projects

CARACAS, April 17 (Xinhua) -- China and Venezuela signed a series of agreements on Saturday to help the latter develop its oil and electricity industries.

Under the agreements, the two countries will set up an oil exploiting and processing joint venture in Venezuela's Orinoco reserves belt.

China will provide technology transfer to Venezuela and help it build its own thermoelectric power plant to ease the oil-exporting country's recent energy crisis.

China will also provide soft loans worth 20 billion U.S. dollars to Venezuela's energy sector via the China Development Bank, according to the agreements.

Venezuela has become China's fifth biggest trading partner in Latin America. Bilateral trade reached 7.15 billion U.S. dollars last year, Chinese statistics show.