The President of Ecuador, Lenin Moreno, on Wednesday announced that his country intends to withdraw from the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) in the near future, TASS reported.

According to Moreno, the reason was the fact that over the past year half of the member states neither contribute nor participate in the activities of the union.

Ecuador became the seventh country to declare a desire to leave the organization. In April last year, Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Paraguay, Peru and Chile suspended their membership. In August, Colombia announced its withdrawal from UNASUR.