GEORGETOWN, Guyana – Guyana is reportedly examining a proposal to set up a PetroCaribe Economic Zone (PEZ), made by Venezuela at the PetroCaribe summit held earlier this month in Caracas and attended by Prime Minister Samuel Hinds. According to Venezuelan Oil and Mining Minister Rafael Ramírez, this initiative will widen the role of PetroCaribe beyond the provision of oil at favourable prices, allowing inter alia for the strengthening of fair trade mechanisms among participating countries. In this respect, Mr Hinds has explained that, “… countries could meet some or all of their finance portions of their oil purchases by selling goods to Venezuela. Guyana is already taking advantage of this as it sells rice to the neighbouring country.” Even if this barter factor helps to explain to some extent the Prime Minister’s apparent enthusiasm for the proposition, it is not quite clear how the PEZ will develop, as Mr Hinds puts it, “the production sectors of member states, based on the linkage of production chains which would generate economic surplus… would make cooperation sustainable in the context of PetroCaribe.”