Venezuela became the first non-African nation to join the African Petroleum Producers Organization (APPO) as an “observer member”.

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Thanks to the joint efforts of the APPO Secretary Omar Farouk Ibrahim and the Venezuelan Ambassador Anibal Marquez, the APPO Council of Ministers unanimously approved the incorporation of Venezuela during the face-to-face meeting held in Algiers, People's Democratic Republic of Algeria.

The APPPO is made up of Algeria, Angola, Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Libya, Niger, Nigeria, and South Africa.

The official certificate that accredits the Bolivarian nation as an observer member was signed at the Venezuelan embassy in the Congo, the country where the APPO headquarters are located.

Ambassador Marquez pointed out that the Venezuelan work in the APPO will be based on South-South interaction and cooperation programs and on the precepts of economic complementarity of the Africa South America Social Forum (ASA).

Since its creation in 1987 in Nigeria, the APPO has served as a platform for cooperation and harmonization of efforts, collaboration, sharing of knowledge and expertise among oil producing countries.

“Its founding members conceived it as a means of alleviating the difficulties of non-oil producing African countries who were faced with balance of payment challenges and therefore could not import refined oil products,” it recalled.