Raphael John-Lall

Di­rec­tor of In­ter­na­tion­al Re­la­tions of the Cuban Cham­ber of Com­merce, Mirtha Rippes, wants to see clos­er trade and busi­ness ties be­tween Cu­ba and T&T."We do not know each oth­er well enough and this has to change. We must de­vel­op clos­er bi­lat­er­al re­la­tions," she said dur­ing a sem­i­nar on Cu­ba and T&T busi­ness ties at the Trade and In­vest­ment Con­ven­tion (TIC) at the Cen­tre of Ex­cel­lence, Ma­coya, yes­ter­day.

At present the T&T's com­pa­nies op­er­at­ing in Cu­ba in­clude An­gos­tu­ra, Sacha Cos­met­ics and Re­pub­lic Bank. Rippes said the Cuban mod­el is be­ing up­dat­ed with new laws which open the econ­o­my to more for­eign in­vest­ment."At present, there are 3,000 com­pa­nies from around the world that do busi­ness with Cu­ba. We are part of the World Trade Or­ga­ni­za­tion (WTO). We do trade un­der the same con­di­tions as oth­er coun­tries," she said.

Je­sus Gon­za­lez, di­rec­tor of the Econ­o­my for the Caribbean Re­gion in Cu­ba's Min­istry of For­eign Com­merce said T&T's econ­o­my is boom­ing and Cu­ba wants to do more busi­ness."Cu­ba has now de­vel­oped med­ical prod­ucts to fight can­cer, we have de­vel­oped prod­ucts to fight dengue and we want to put these prod­ucts in the mar­ket."It would be good if T&T's au­thor­i­ties con­sid­er these prod­ucts," he said.