Cuban trade with Chinese
characteristics By Patricia Grogg
HAVANA - The Cuban government is attempting to
strengthen and expand trade with China, the country's
third-largest trading partner after Venezuela and Spain,
while preserving the distance between its own brand of
socialism and the giant Asian country's "market
socialism".
Havana's strategy is not only aimed
at boosting cooperation and trade flows, which in 2003
totaled US$357 million, but at attracting greater
investment from China as well.
Cuba's Ministry
of Foreign Investment and Cooperation will present 41
proposals for joint ventures at the eighth China
International Fair for Investment and Trade (CIFIT), one
of the biggest such events in Asia which ends this
weekend in the port city of Xiamen.
According to
the organizers, the fair, sponsored by China's Trade
Ministry and the Xiamen city government, is aimed at
promoting cooperation and trade between China and the
rest of the world. The host city is one of China's
leading special economic zones, and is one of the main
international business areas in Asia.
Cuba is
exhibiting a varied sample of its main export products
in the fair, and representatives of more than 30 state
enterprises are taking advantage of the occasion to seek
out new business opportunities, sources at the Ministry
of Foreign Trade told Inter Press Service.
Cuba's proposals for investment
opportunities for China in this Caribbean island nation of
11.2 million are in areas like the fishing industry,
footwear and garments, wood and metal furniture,
medical equipment and sugarcane by-products.
Some of
the proposed projects are targeting medium-sized
businesses, but others require large amounts of capital,
the director of the Investment Promotion Center, Anaiza
Rodriguez, said in an interview with Cuba's weekly
business magazine, Negocios. Rodriguez said that already
10 joint ventures are in operation, six in Cuba and four
in China, as well as three "cooperative production
contracts".
The four joint ventures in China are
in the pharmaceutical industry, high-tech medical
equipment, genetic engineering and biotechnology,
including a company dedicated to the joint development,
production and marketing of products for the treatment
of cancer and autoimmune diseases. The Biotech
Pharmaceutical Ltd Corp is currently building a
modern production plant in the Beijing Development Zone,
one of China's most important.
Although Cuba's
trade with China exceeded $600 million in 1990, it had
declined to $268 million by 1995, largely due to the
drop in this Caribbean nation's sugar production. Up to
1990, Beijing was buying more than a million tons of
sugar a year from Havana.
In the past few years,
China's imports from Cuba have expanded to include
nickel, biotechnology products, fresh citrus fruits,
processed citrus products, steel, coal and tobacco.
Yang Shidi, economic and trade adviser in the
Chinese Embassy in Havana, told the Negocios magazine in
Cuba that bilateral trade amounted to $254 million in
the first half of the year, representing a 28% rise on
the same period last year.
In addition, trade
between the two countries is more balanced than in the
past, with China exporting $139 million worth of goods
to Cuba and importing $115 million. Of the total trade
balance in 2003, Chinese exports to Cuba stood at $236
million and Cuba's exports to China at $121 million,
said Shidi, who added that Cuba is one of his country's
most important trading partners in Latin America.
The products that China imports from Cuba
include tobacco, biorat (a biological rat poison),
interferon (a drug that stimulates the immune system),
high-tech medical equipment, vaccines and seafood.
Among Cuba's most significant imports from China
were a shipment of more than a million TV sets, the
machinery for manufacturing bicycles, and telephone
terminals to upgrade Cuba's telecommunications system.
Since the late 1980s, China has revived
cooperation with Cuba by granting soft government loans
and donations, mainly for education and agriculture.
In 2003, China's government gave Cuba a $9
million development loan, and it recently added the
island to its list of official tourism destinations.
China could become an important source of visitors for
Cuba's growing tourism industry. The World Tourism
Organization reports that 17 million Chinese tourists
travelled abroad last year.
Cuba and China
established diplomatic ties on September 28, 1960, but
bilateral relations have been chilly at times, depending
on each nation's position within the former socialist
bloc.
Analysts said the 2001 visit to Havana by
then Chinese president Jiang Zemin and Cuban President
Fidel Castro's 2003 trip to Beijing confirmed that ties
are now based on a footing of mutually advantageous
trade interests and shared political values.
But
while China's economic model is an important reference
point for Cuba, local authorities underline that Cuban
socialism must follow its own route, based on the
preponderant role of socialist state enterprises and the
tendency towards centralization.
(Inter Press
Service)
Sep 11, 2004
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