MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Cuba and the “new climate” after more foreign investors

Tourism main source of foreign currency

Cuba is considering further opening its economy to foreign investments given the “new climate” for business and “economic consolidation”. However errors of the past 2will not be repeated”.

"The consolidation of the economy is a fact. We have years of sustained economic growth and this has given room for a new business climate, for new developments", pointed out Cuban Foreign Investments minister Marta Lomas. Last July 26th caretaker president Raul Castro announced that the government was considering attracting more foreign investment into the country, as in the nineties, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the island experienced a surge of investors during the so called "special period". "Foreign investment begun during our special period, very closely associated to the needs of the country because of the economic crisis of that time", said Lomas over the weekend during an interview with visiting Spanish International Cooperation minister Leire Pajin. With the experience of these years Cuba can expand "investment without falling into the errors we committed in the first years because of our lack of knowledge and above all our urging economic needs. But we've all learnt", underlined Lomas. She added that top of the list of priorities was tourism that has become the island's main source of foreign currency, "and we need partners", although Lomas said that "12% of Cuba's hotel capacity is foreign investment, the rest was done with Cuban effort". That is why "we are planning to complement the needed tourism development with foreign partners". Lomas revealed that in Cuba there are 236 foreign corporations working under an association agreement with local industries with an annual turnover of over 3 billion US dollars. These corporations are mostly involved in infrastructure such as oil and gas, mining, electricity, plus tourism, light industry, construction and the food sector. Most foreign investment is from Canada (oil, nickel, and electricity), Spain (tourism and public utilities), Italy (hotels and light industry), Venezuela (oil) and Germany.