The 22nd Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People's Trade Agreement (ALBA-TCP) will be held today in Havana.
 
According to the Cuban Foreign Ministry, the meeting will be an opportunity to commemorate the 18th anniversary of the creation of the regional mechanism, as well as to exchange on the progress and challenges of ALBA-TCP, for the benefit of member nations.
 
As part of the anniversary celebrations, the National Assembly of People's Power will hold an extraordinary session in the capital's Palacio de las Convenciones, convened by the Council of State.
 
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on his Twitter account that the meeting aims to " celebrate the 18 years of cooperation, solidarity and Latin American and Caribbean integration among the countries of the bloc".
 
ALBA-TCP was created on December 14, 2004, through an agreement signed in Havana between the then presidents of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, and Cuba, Fidel Castro, as a response to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), promoted by the United States and finally rejected by Latin America in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2005.
 
The political coordination mechanism is made up of ten countries: Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Dominica, Antigua and Barbuda, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, Grenada, and Cuba.