Business & Economy

Russia’s state-run Zarubezhneft Company will carry out oil exploitation operations in four blocks in Cuba during the next 25 years, according to a contract signed by the governments of both nations. This is the first agreement of its kind established since the disappearance of the Soviet Union in 1991.

The government of Ecuador will purchase from Cuba equipment for the installation of thermoelectric units with a capacity for 150 megawatts, announced official sources in Quito. The South American country will specifically purchase power generation sets with internal combustion motors.

Cuba’s foreign trade registered a 36 per cent drop in the first nine months of this year.

For the sixth year in a row Cuba achieved the figure of two million tourists, announced the Ministry of Tourism. With two months to go in the year, tourist arrivals are up 3.9 percent over last year, reported IPS citing the Ministry. The growth has occurred despite the economic crisis and the international health situation.

Cuba is not negotiating the laying of an underwater fiber optic cable from the United States, said Francisco Hartmann, an official from the Information Society Office.

Writing for a publication called the Global Post, Nick Miroff provides readers with an excellent account of the history and current status of business relations between US mobile phone companies and Internet providers and Cuba.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin has been in Cuba this week to get a look at the island’s civil defense system. The deadly chaos that overcame New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 sharply contrasted from Cuba’s dealing with that cyclone and three major hurricanes in 2008, when only seven persons died as a result.

A trade delegation from Virginia headed up by the state’s commissioner of agriculture and consumer services is expected in Cuba for the Havana International Trade Fair to take place from November 2-7.

Cuban President Raúl Castro is willing to risk unpopular measures to free the state from its excessive burden of subsidies and for-free services, as part of a program to adjust public expenditure to shrunken government revenues and balance the budget.