Business & Economy

Cuba saved more than 10 million dollars in 2010 from the retreading of tires, Iris Carrazana González, economic director of the National Tire Company, announced. According to the specialist, the island hopes to increase this year its industrial capacities in this sector, to reach some 135,000 tires.

The Cuban tax office know as the ONAT, is carrying out a campaign to get taxpayers to pay up on time instead of falling behind and risking penalties. Ana Evora a specialist at ONAT said that as in previous years, personal income taxes should be paid up by March 1. She noted that those persons who became self-employed in the last four months of 2010 will have a one-time exemption from filing.

Cuban-American senators Bob Menendez and Marc Rubio presented an amendment that would block any flight from the United States to the island or any other country considered a sponsor of terrorism, according to the list drawn up by Washington. In January, President Barack Obama lifted a group of restrictions to facilitate “people-to-people” contacts between the two countries.

The more than 8,000 computers in the University of Computer Science (UCI) will soon migrate to the open-code Nova Linux 3.0 operating system, with which it will become the first educational center in Cuba to begin using exclusively free software, Abel Firvida, chief of the Nova project, affirmed.

Cuba and China increased the volume of their bilateral trade in 2010, which amounted to 1.8 billion dollars, Liu Yuquin, Chinese ambassador to the island, announced. However, that figure is still below the 2.2 billion registered in 2008. The Asian country sells automobiles, buses and electric appliances to its Caribbean trade partner, which exports rum, sugar and biotechnological products.

Cuba presented the new version of the NOVA operational system, based on Linux, as part of its strategy to migrate to free software. At the presentation made at the 2011 Informatics Fair, the deputy rector of the University of Computer Sciences (UCI), Héctor Rodríguez, affirmed that NOVA is a very promising system for businesses, because it is adaptable to the needs of clients and offers greater informatics security.

Shrimp production in Cuba decreased from 4,323 tons in 2006 to only 3,100 tons last year, Amado Posada, director of the Business Group for Shrimp Development, announced. According to the specialist, the crisis in this sector is due to technological violations, organizational problems, corruption, instability in supplies and deterioration of the productive infrastructure.

The first move was the government buy out of Telcom’s (Italy) minority share of the Cuban Telecomunications Co. ETECSA. The second was to unblock access on the island to the most well known Cuban blog internationally, Generation Y, put out by Yoani Sanchez.

State housing construction decreased 7.5 per cent in 2010 as compared to the figure planned by the government, while the private sector reported an increase of 158 per cent, according to the report “Housing: Selected Indicators. January-December 2010” of the National Office of Statistics (ONE). The island’s government, which has a housing deficit of more than half a million units, hopes to build 43,000 homes this year.