Chavez wants reserves moved from US

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged South American leaders to withdraw their assets and move their international reserves from US. Chavez, who is attending a regional heads-of-state meeting in Argentina, said in comments broadcasted by Venezuelan state television on Tuesday that keeping central banks' international reserves in the US was detrimental to the interests of South American nations. 'Where are these reserves? A large part is in the US, in US Treasury bonds. That's not a good idea right now because the dollar is in a free-fall,' Chavez said. He claimed that a portion of these reserves could be used to create a regional development fund saying that Venezuela could jump-start the fund with a USD 4b investment from its Central Banks reserves requesting that other leaders join him. 'We must move our reserves. We would have to convince our central banks. It's something that we have to do,' he added.