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White House Fact Sheet on the Venezuela-United States Science and Technical Cooperation Agreement

December 08, 1990

On Thursday, December 6, 1990, the Government of the United States of America and the Government of Venezuela agreed to enter into a 5-year agreement on cooperation in science and technology. This agreement renews the United States-Venezuela agreement for scientific and technical cooperation which expired in July 1988. It will serve as an important instrument to revitalize scientific and technical cooperation between the two countries.

The agreement was signed at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs by Dr. D. Allan Bromley, Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, for the United States and by Minister Dulce Arnao de Uzcategui for the Government of Venezuela.

The principal objective of the agreement is to provide additional opportunities to exchange ideas, information, skills, and techniques and to collaborate on problems of mutual interest. Cooperation may include exchanges of scientific and technical information, exchanges of scientists and technical experts, the convening of joint seminars and meetings, and the conduct of joint research projects in the basic and applied sciences.

The agreement will serve as an important catalyst to improve and enhance scientific technical cooperation between the two countries, particularly in areas such as environment and global change -- including biodiversity, forestry management, and mining pollution in the Venezuelan Amazon -- geosciences, and materials and standards research.

The agreement contains two annexes covering intellectual property and security obligations. The intellectual property annex ensures adequate and effective protection of intellectual property and equitable allocation of intellectual property rights arising from cooperative S&T activities. Certain areas of cooperation (drinks and food products for humans or animals, medicines of all kinds, pharmaceutical and chemical preparations, reactions, and compounds) are excluded from cooperation because the Venezuelan patent law does not provide adequate protection in these areas.

The security obligations annexes provide protection for any classified material that might inadvertently result from S&T cooperation and protection for any national security export-controlled equipment or technology involved in the cooperation.

Considering our common interest in promoting scientific research and technological development and recognizing the benefits which will be derived as a result of enhanced close cooperation, the United States and Venezuela look forward to implementation of the agreement.

George Bush, White House Fact Sheet on the Venezuela-United States Science and Technical Cooperation Agreement Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/265278

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