China to Invest in Cuba Golf Courses
HAVANA TIMES – Cuba and China signed several agreements to boost bilateral cooperation, including agreements to promote the construction of golf courses on the island, reported DPA news.
Representatives of the two countries signed on Sunday in Havana several agreements in the fields of transport, tourism, industry and biotechnology, the paper said.
Among them “is the project of creating joint ventures to build golf courses in areas surround the capital Havana as well as the far western province of Pinar del Río” explained the official organ of the Communist Party of Cuba.
The agreements were signed during the visit to the island of the Chinese Communist Party secretary for Beijing, Guo Jinlong.
The construction of golf courses is one of the more recent brainchild’s of Raul Castro’s government as a way to boost tourism, one of the main pillars of the island’s economy.
Also the UK
Recently, the British ambassador in Cuba, Tim Cole, also announced a major investment by a British company for golf tourism.
The company Esencia Hotels and Resorts plans to build a golf course near the resort of Varadero with an investment of $350 million, said Cole at the end of May.
The course would be the largest British investment on the island in a decade, the diplomat added.
During the International Tourism Fair of Cuba in early May, the Minister of Tourism of the island, Manuel Marrero, also announced the creation of a British-Cuban joint venture company.
The state group Palmares and Esencia Hotels and Resorts is responsible for the construction of an 18-hole golf course in Varadero. The complex will also have 750 apartments, 200 homes and a shopping center.
I think getting the Americans in as well to design and build golf courses will go a long way to opening the country up to Americans who would like to vacation on the beautiful island of Cuba.
I think that the Chinese and Vietnamese, and now the Cuban, Marxists are opting for a capitalist horse to ride, because their genetically-diseased state-monopoly horse has collapsed beneath them.
Instead of reexamining their Marx cult-of-personality for the theoretical origins of their horse’s pathology, they maintain their quasi-religious cult, while changing economic steeds in mid-stream.
It’s beginning to look as though Moses has more real, common sense socialism in his brain than the state-monopoly socialists. Talk about ironies!
The two British businessmen currently on trial in Havana on an assortment of corruption related charges had been involved in a huge plan to develop, among other things, a hotel and golf course.
The fate of these hapless Brits must be on the minds of these new Chinese and British businessmen now discussing a new golf course project with the Cuban authorities.
http://uk.reuters.com/article/2013/05/30/uk-cuba-corruption-trial-idUKBRE94T0RI20130530
The irony in this post is too much to bear silently. The world’s largest so-called communist state is joint-venturing with the world’s socialists closest thing to a wet dream to build golf courses! You can’t make this stuff up! Golf is the world’s most elitist sport. Along with polo, which must be somewhere on the Cuban radar given their British cohorts, golf is the most expensive, ecologically indefensible and exclusive sports on the planet. It is the poster child for everything wrong with capitalism. How many comrades could have homes built, how many water and sewer infrastructure repairs could be paid for in exchange for the land and plumbing resources dedicated to building and maintaining fairways and putting greens? How does being employed as a caddie, groundskeeper or course marshal fit into that whole Marxist scheme? I can just imagine it. The guy who lugs my clubs around for me makes more money than a Cuban doctor. This is simply too rich to ignore! BTW, I love golf. I try to play at least once a month and I get to the driving range once a week. I would hope to one day in a post-Castro Cuba to buy a home on the links. The commenter Luis is invited to my house to play a round (or at least the front 9).