The Latin American and the Caribbean Economic System, officially known as Sistema Económico Latinoamericano y del Caribe (SELA), is an organization founded in 1975 to promote economic cooperation and social development between Latin American and the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

countries. In the early 1990s, its representatives consisted of members from 28 countries and took part in the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is a legal agreement between many countries, whose overall purpose was to promote international trade by reducing or eliminating trade barriers such as tariffs or quotas. According to its pre ...

(GATT) negotiations, which led to a new global agreement on restrictions on trade and established the World Trade Organization (WTO). The Latin American Council represents SELA's policy-making body and meets once a year. The main administrative body is the secretariat, located in Caracas, Venezuela. Latin American Economic System

Objectives

International relations scholar Sheldon Liss, in ''Diplomacy and Dependency: Venezuela, the United States, and the Americas'' (1978) described the initial objectives of SELA:

SELA, composed of twenty-five member states, and to which Venezuela contributes the largest share (17 per cent) of the budget, hopes to: restructure international commerce in basic commodities in order to raise developing states' export values, improve trade conditions, stimulate industrial development, control foreign-based transnational corporations, create Latin American multinational companies which will use to better advantage the human, technological, and financial resources of the area, sponsor organizations to process and market raw materials, improve the negotiating power of the member states, and plan joint economic strategies. SELA members deem it likely that Venezuelan oil wealth will permit them easy access to petrodollars for use as finance capital. (pp 271, 2.)

Member countries

External links

Sistema Económico Latinoamericano y del Caribe – Official Website
Organisations based in the Caribbean Organizations based in Latin America United Nations General Assembly observers {{government-stub

Objectives

Member countries

See also

External links