CUBA BUSINESS SECTION - Havana Journal > Business In Cuba
By Circles Robinson
Cuba’s economy is not easy to understand, especially for those that have never lived under a similar system where government plays a lead role. To begin with, it doesn’t go by the usual market codes of supply and demand and corporate profit isn’t its driving force.
Coming from North America or Europe to a typical Cuban urban neighborhood, the visitor’s first impression might be one of poverty: crumbling or poorly maintained buildings, pot-holed streets, ancient cars, homes where there are few “extras” etc.
On the other hand, if you arrive from…
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Press Release
H.E. Mrs. Marta Lomas Morales, Minister of Foreign Investment & Economic Cooperation of the Republic of Cuba and Ahmed Al-Mazroei, Deputy Chief Executive of Qatari Diar.
Qatari Diar have signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the Republic of Cuba for a $70million investment to develop an exclusive 5 star resort in Cuba.
The Memorandum of Agreement was signed by Ahmed Al-Mazroei, Deputy Chief Executive of Qatari Diar and Marta Lomas, Minister for International Investment, Republic of Cuba at Qatari Diar’s Lusail headquarters.
The…
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AFP
Cubans snapped up some 7,400 new contracts for mobile phone service in 10 days after President Raul Castro eased restrictions on mobile phone ownership, a telecoms executive said.
State telecoms company Etecsa is predicting 1.4 million new mobile service contracts in the next five years, Maximo Lafuente, its vice president for mobile services, said Wednesday.
Cubans flooded Etecsa offices to sign up for service starting April 14, when government restrictions on personal mobile phones were officially lifted.
Before then, mobile phone service was reserved for people working for foreign firms and…
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AFP
Cubans who learned last week that they will be allowed to own cell phones got a bonus Wednesday, with news that the mobile connections will allow them to reach overseas friends and relatives in the U.S. and beyond.
Havana announced last week that it was lifting a prohibition on ordinary Cubans owning mobile phones - one of several recent signs that daily life will be somewhat more relaxed under the regime of its new president, Raul Castro, who in February succeeded his brother, revolutionary icon Fidel Castro.
A list of phone rates released…
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DPA
Cuba’s government has begun doling out unused agricultural land to farmers with the aim of increasing production of staple foods, tobacco and coffee, state television reported. The land is being made available to farmers only through cooperatives, Orlando Lugo Fonte, chairman of Cuba’s national farmers organization, said in the TV report Monday night.
Despite a shortage of foreign currency, the Communist Caribbean island must import a large portion of its food. The government has raised prices of agricultural produces with the aim of boosting production.
About half the cultivable land in Cuba lies…
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By Marc Frank | Reuters
Cuba has lifted a ban on its nationals staying at hotels that were reserved exclusively for foreigners, hotel employees said on Monday.
It was the latest step to liberalize the communist-run state under new President Raul Castro, who has ended bans on Cubans buying computers, DVD players and cellular telephones.
“Anyone can stay at hotels as of midnight last night, as long as they have ID and the money to pay for a room,” said the night porter at the Chateau Miramar hotel in western Havana.
Employees…
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By WILL WEISSERT | Associated Press
Raul Castro: Cubans can have cell phones
President Raul Castro’s government said Friday it is allowing cell phones for ordinary Cubans, a luxury previously reserved for those who worked for foreign firms or held key posts with the communist-run state.
It was the first official announcement of the lifting of a major restriction under the 76-year-old Castro, and marked the kind of small freedom many on the island have been hoping he would embrace since succeeding his older brother Fidel as president last month.
Some Cubans…
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Ahora.cu | / Aracelis Aviles
During our tour trough the mountains of Frank País, Mayarí, Cueto and Sagua, we could see some boxes half a meter square at the side of the road, with a separation between them, and with some little insects in one of the “openings”.
Ramon Vazquez, director of the Apicultural Establishment of Holguin, said that the “openings” are named bungholes, all beehives have one to enter and leave by.”
The little insects are named apis mellis, and exist in the whole of “Turquino Plan”, a kind of bee capable to…
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IPS | By Dalia Acosta
Cuba’s new government, headed by Raúl Castro, appears to be prepared to take urgent action to tackle complex problems like the country’s dual monetary system and the low wages that fail to stimulate production, in a country that has been in the grip of an economic crisis for nearly two decades.
The priority to be given to economic questions was made clear in Castro’s first speech as president, on Feb. 24, and has lately been the buzz on the streets in Cuba.
“They say they’re going to devalue the…
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By ANDREA RODRIGUEZ | Associated Press
Communist Cuba has issued what appears to be the first public report on prices and inflation in the private sector, in an unusually realistic acknowledgment of the key role the informal economy plays in island life.
In its “Survey of Prices in the Informal Sector,” the National Office of Statistics estimated that the cost of goods and services purchased from private sources rose 4 percent from February 2007 to the same month in 2008.
The report was posted on the office’s Web site on Thursday, about a…
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