Business & Economy

Marino Murillo, one of Cuba’s vice presidents and considered the gatekeeper of the Communist Party’s economic “updating”, told the Council of Ministers on Tuesday that a first group of 126 non-agricultural cooperatives will be operational soon.

The Cuban government has issued a regulation for “maquiladora” companies that will operate in the future Special Development Zone at Mariel, a port west of Havana that’s being expanded into a major facility, reports AFP.

Direct flights between Miami and the eastern Cuban city of Manzanillo begin today for the first time, through the company Wilson International reported Café Fuerte. The air link between the two cities will depart every Monday at 2 pm. Another similar service to Camaguey is set to start on April 16.

The US embargo on Cuba has made possible the continued theft of the island’s famous Cohiba Cigar trademark by the US firm General Cigars.

More than 50 thousand cubic meters of timber, demolished by Hurricane Sandy last October, are about to be lost in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba, while the resource is scarce at the sales points for building materials needed by the population, reported the Café Fuerte website.

Problems as diverse as shortage of raw material (raw cane), industrial accidents, the breakdown of machinery, lack of rigor and exigency, and the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy in eastern Cuba cast doubt on the outcome of the current sugar harvest.

Cuban President Raul Castro and First Vice President Miguel Diaz-Canel officers sent two separate messages of congratulations to newly elected Chinese leaders, reported dpa news.

The Cuban government has just changed the name, mission and functions of the Ministry of Informatics and Communications through an executive order. Likewise, the University of Information Sciences (UCI) will now be under the Ministry of Higher Education.

The milling of sugar cane in Cuba has been hampered by the damage to refineries, transportation problems and low crop yields resulting from Hurricane Sandy, which stuck the east of the island this past October.

The rescheduling Cuba’s debts to Russia has caused concern among other creditor countries belonging to the “Paris Club,” said Western diplomats to Reuters, though they didn’t want to identify themselves.