Business & Economy

Chilean businessman Max Marambio began legal actions against the Cuban government before the International Chamber of Commerce, based in Paris, to defend himself against the “unfounded and unfair conflict created with our companies” in the island, he announced in a communiqué. Marambio, who headed for more than 16 years the Río Zaza food and beverages company, has been summoned by the Cuban Ministry of the Interior to testify in court as part of a process for alleged mismanagement.

The governments of Cuba and El Salvador signed three cooperation agreements in the fields of health, education and culture as part of the official visit to the island by Mauricio Funes, president of that Central American country, the island’s state-run press reported. During the signing ceremony it was announced that an official Salvadoran delegation would travel soon to the island to continue studying in depth relations between the two countries.

The suburban agriculture programme was extended to 57 of Cuba’s 169 municipalities, Adolfo Rodríguez Nodals, head of the National Urban Agriculture Group who directs that initiative, said. The programme’s aim is to create a green belt around the population settlements to meet their inhabitants’ food needs. According to the specialist, by March 2011 almost all the island’s municipalities should be incorporated into this plan.

Last week’s rains improved the situation of the reservoirs in the provinces in central and eastern Cuba, but were insufficient and it is necessary to continue saving. The precipitations benefited, among others, the Zaza Dam, the country’s largest, which now is at 53 per cent of its capacity.

Cuba will build three new mooring terminals and another for supertankers to add to the five that already exist in the port of Cienfuegos, 230 kilometers east of the Cuban capital, Luis Medina, of the National Port Authority.

Only 2.9 per cent of the persons who were surveyed said they had been able to have direct access to the Internet in the last year and the majority used that service at their study or workplaces, according to a report published by the National Office of Statistics (ONE). The sample, according to which only 5.9 per cent had access from their homes, was carried out between February and April 2010 in some 38,000 Cuban homes.

The rains associated to tropical depression sixteen mitigated the difficult situation of the reservoirs in the centre and east of Cuba, depressed because of the acute drought, sources from the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources reported. Just the Zaza Dam, the country’s largest, incorporated around 133 million cubic metres, an amount that will increase in the next few hours with the water flowing in from the rivers that feed it.

Mural in tourist installation HAVANA, Sept. 29 – The number of tourist arrivals to Cuba up to last August increased 1.8 per cent as compared to a similar period in 2009, but the principal tourist markets, headed by Canada, United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Germany, reported a tendency to decrease, balanced out by the increase of other non-traditional markets such as Russia, according to a report by the National Office of Statistics.

The Ministry of Finances and Prices of Cuba announced an increase in the price of the fuel sold at the island’s service stations due to the 25 per cent rise in the price of oil on the international market and the forecasted further hike in the coming months.