Business & Economy

To what extent the suggestions and proposals for altering the plan will be taken into accourt, in part already being implemented, is being closely followed around the country and abroad.

Cuba received a million tourists in the first quarter of 2011, for a 10.4 per cent growth, the Ministry of Tourism reported in a communiqué. The source indicated that this increase was especially encouraged by travellers from Canada, Russia, Argentina, UK, Chile, Poland, Venezuela and Belgium.

The nongovernmental Cuba Studies Group proposed offering 50 million dollars in microloans to small private businesses that have opened in Cuba, in a report released in Washington. The initiative would also include the lifting of US restrictions on financial transactions to the island and the advice by US specialists to small businesses.

The Cuban authorities will try to make more efficient the sugar harvest through the introduction of Brazilian harvesters, global positioning systems (GPS) and the reorganization of cane transportation, among other experimental measures designed to modernize that sector, said sources from the Ministry of the Sugar Industry.

Cuba expects to drill five oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico this summer with the participation of foreign companies, Manuel Marrero, specialist with the Ministry of Basic Industry, announced during the International Earth Sciences Convention, being held in the island’s capital. According to Marrero, it is estimated that there is a reserve of between five and nine billion barrels of crude in Cuban waters.

Farms in urban and suburban areas have doubled in Cuba in the last three years in almost all the country’s municipalities, reported IPS. With that initiative the authorities hope to increase the deficit in food production and improve its distribution in the cities.

Cuba will resume the sending of mail to the United States starting tomorrow in response “to the easing of the safety measures announced by the Transportation Security Administration” of the U.S., according to a note released today by the island’s state-run press. However, the restrictions on postal packages will be maintained, the text specified.

Cuba expects the arrival this coming summer of an oil platform from China, which will confirm the existence of crude in under the waters of the island’s Exclusive Economic Zone in the Gulf of Mexico, announced Rafael Tenreyro, director of exploration of Cuba Petróleo (CUPET).

The export of vegetable coal to Europe will increase this year to 20,000 tons from the central province of Ciego de Avila, the largest amount in the last five years, reported IPS. That non-traditional production also favors the cleaning of the fields infested with the marabou bush weed.