Business & Economy

The huge Houston Port Authority has added a weekly shipping line to Cuba in a move that could bring considerable business if the US embargo on the Caribbean island is ever dropped.

Canadian airlines will be granted access to fly between multiple domestic locations within Cuba announced The Canadian Press on Friday. Canada provides Cuba with over 40 percent of its overall tourists. Cuba’s ambassador to Canada, De JesDus Vicente Sotolongo, told The Press that the measure would apply to four Canadian charter airlines that currently run tours to Cuba: Air Transat, Sunwing Airlines, WestJet and Canjet Airlines.

Cuba will promote its tourist offerings including the opening of new hotels during the upcoming IMEX trade show that takes place in Frankfurt, Germany from May 25-27, 2010. Since the fall of the Socialist Camp back in the early 1990s, Cuba has turned to its vast tourism potential as a key pillar to recover its economy.

A total of 44 sugar factories should start operating in January as part of the 2009-2010 sugar harvest, which the authorities have previewed as modest since it is expected to produce 1.5 million tons.

The lack of liquidity in hard currency is the principal economic problem in Cuba, affirmed the island’s Economy Minister Marino Murillo. According to the official, the government’s strategy involves the substitution of imports and giving priority to sectors such as tourism, telecommunications and civil aeronautics.

A new gas-driven power generation plant will be installed in Cienfuegos, 230 kilometers southeast of the Cuban capital, by the Energas S.A. joint venture, with a capacity of 150 megawatts, reported IPS.

Mobile telephone service in Cuba closed 2009 with 600,000 clients (of the 11.2 million Cubans), said First Deputy Minister of Communications Ramón Linares Torres. Nonetheless, obtaining and using a cell phone is only in CUC, the island’s hard currency, not the regular pesos which Cubans earn for their salaries.

A Cuban-Venezuelan company will be in charge of building a new international airport in the city of Cap Haitien, reported IPS citing official sources in Port-au-Prince. The work will cost 33 million dollars, which will be defrayed by a loan from Venezuela to be paid in 25 years.

Varadero beach resort, 120 kilometers east of the Cuban capital, today received its millionth tourist for 2009, a figure that confirms it as one of the country’s principal tourist destinations, reported IPS. The peninsula located in Matanzas Province welcomes 40 per cent of the tourists who come to the island; today there are 48 hotels.

Cuba plans to rehabilitate agricultural production in the Valley of Caujerí, in the eastern province of Guantánamo, thanks to a joint project with China that will make it possible to recover the irrigation infrastructure and organization, valued at 1.1 billion US dollars