CUBA BUSINESS SECTION - Havana Journal
By Clive Thompson | Wired Magazine
Back in the ‘80s, Ireland was one of the poorest countries in Western Europe, with unemployment as high as 17 percent. But the scrappy nation had one advantage: It always invested in education, so while the Irish were poor, they were smart.
American tech companies like Dell and Intel eventually realized the island was full of underemployed brainiacs and opened up offices there. The Irish were soon performing tasks such as developing software and working in pharmaceutical manufacturing and research. By the late ‘90s, the influx of jobs turned the country around: Ireland was…
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Marc Frank | Reuters
Cuban factories are closing down and production is being cut at other workplaces as the international financial crisis weighs on the import-dependent Caribbean island, the official media said on Sunday.
A growing shortage of foreign exchange has forced the Communist-run country to drastically cut imports and local budgets, impose power quotas on state-run companies, restructure debt and put off payments to foreign suppliers.
The state-run Juventud Rebelde newspaper, the only national Sunday publication, said a tire factory had shut down since February due to a lack of rubber imports while an aluminum packaging plant cut output…
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By Marc Frank | Reuters (bold below by me for emphasis)
Cuba has rolled over 200 million euros in bond issues that were due in May, as the country’s central bank asked for another year to repay foreign holders of the debt, financial sources in London and Havana said this week.
The move is yet another sign the Communist-run nation is suffering a cash crisis, as it struggles with sharp declines in revenues from tourism and key exports due to the global economic crisis.
The two-year euro-denominated bonds of 150 million euros and 50 million euros that were rolled over…
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AP
The head of Cuba’s central bank has resigned as President Raul Castro pushes ahead with a government reorganization amid signs of a cash crunch, state television reported Thursday.
Francisco Soberon, 64, has been replaced by Ernesto Medina, who heads Banco Financiero Internacional, one of Cuba’s biggest banks, according to an official announcement read on the evening news. It did not say when the move had taken effect.
Soberon, who led the bank for nearly 15 years, also asked to be removed from the Cuban Communist Party’s policy-making Central Committee and as a parliament deputy, it said.
The statement offered…
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By Pascal Fletcher | Reuters
Miami’s business will gain if the United States unilaterally lifts its trade embargo on Cuba, but the city could face “unfair” competition from state-subsidized Cuban cigar, citrus and rum exports, its main trade body said.
This is one finding of a new report from the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce which for the first time considers the scenario that President Barack Obama’s administration may ease or even end the embargo without major changes inside Cuba.
Obama has said the 47-year-old embargo will remain for the moment to press Cuba’s communist leadership to free dissidents and…
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EFE
The Cuban government will cut power supplies to companies and organizations that do not observe the “exceptional measures” set to take effect Monday to save fuel and relieve the deteriorating economy of the communist-ruled island.
Havana’s director of economy and planning, Jorge Luis Villa, said that each enterprise has a plan for using electricity whose observance “conditions” whether it may continue to consume energy, the official weekly Tribuna de La Habana said.
“The government could decide to cut off electricity to those who do not comply and who will then have to give an accounting of the deficiencies detected,”…
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(Publisher note: See my comments in bold below)
By Jeff Franks | Reuters
A cash crunch is causing one of Cuba’s largest business corporations, Cimex, to put off payments for some products, but the bills eventually will be settled, the head of the state-owned company said on Thursday.
Eventually? Just like the Russian debt from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s will eventually be settled?
Cimex President Eduardo Bencomo also said Cuba had not yet seen an increase in remittances sent by Cuban Americans to their families on the communist-ruled island, after U.S. President Barack Obama lifted restrictions on them last…
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William Gibson | Sun Sentinel
A powerful coalition of 16 senators today introduced a bill to lift the ban on travel to Cuba and ease the sale of food and medicine to the island.
The bill was introduced on Cuban Independence Day. It reflects growing pressure from farm states to weaken the 47-year embargo and allow American farmers to expand the Cuban market for their products.
This bill is separate from another in Congress that would remove the travel ban. President Obama has lifted travel limits for Cuban-Americans, but many members of Congress want to move further to allow all…
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RIA Novosti
Azerbaijan plans to participate in developing oil fields in Cuba in line with a draft cooperation agreement, Azerbaijani Minister of Culture and Tourism Abulfaz Garayev said on Tuesday.
The agreement was approved at a meeting of the Azerbaijani-Cuban intergovernmental commission in Baku on Tuesday and is expected to be signed in the “near future,” the minister said.
“This is certainly a very interesting direction. And we hope that the work which is due to be completed over the next year will become a reality,” Garayev told journalists after the meeting.
Last year, Cuba produced around 4 million tons…
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Rob Sequin | Havana Journal
This article below, although well written, deserves much criticism due to the fact that Cuba does not adhere to international accounting practices so their “growth” projections are always very subjective. Of course since there is no independent media in Cuba and since everyone works for the government, none of the statistic or projections can ever be challenged or verified. So, just because this “think tank” is projecting a down turn, it doesn’t mean anything either other than they the downturn is relative to the growth assuming that they at least use the same criteria regularly…
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