Business & Economy

The Cuban scientific community is seeking new varieties of agricultural products resistant to extreme conditions such as intense droughts and hurricanes, which could become more frequent due to climate change, Sergio Rodríguez, director of the National Institute of Research on Tropical Tubers, affirmed. According to the specialist, that institution has a world-renowned germ plasm bank

Baracoa, the first city founded in Cuba by the Spanish colonizers, has recovered 90.4 per cent of the homes affected by Hurricane Ike and the March 2008 coastal flooding, Alicia Licet Noa, director of the Housing Investment Municipal Unit, announced. The hurricanes that hit the country two years ago damaged more than 300,000 homes throughout the Caribbean island nation.

Cuban authorities hope the upcoming 2010-2011 sugar harvest’s production will be similar to last year’s, the worse since 1905, Adrián Jiménez Fernández, deputy minister of that sector, affirmed. Thirty-nine sugar mills throughout the island, a former sugar exporting power, will be operating in this harvest, which will begin on December 1.

The fibre-optic underwater cable that will join Cuba with Venezuela will be operative by July 2011, Alberto Rodríguez Arufe, deputy minister of informatics and communications, announced. The cable, which will increase by 3,000 times the current speed of data, image and voice transmission in the island, will cost 70 million dollars.

Cuba doubled the number of intermediate-level technical careers linked to the agricultural sector to around 19,500, with a network of educational centers that covers almost all the country’s municipalities, Kenelma Carvajal, deputy minister of education, announced. The official also stressed the increase in the income of specialists related to construction. Both increases correspond to a government strategy to reduce the workforce deficit in those sectors.

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.