Raphael John-Lall

Cuban Am­bas­sador to T&T Tania Diego Olite is invit­ing T&T’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Fair (FI­HAV) which will be held from No­vem­ber 6 to 11.

Ac­cord­ing to FI­HAV’s web­site, the busi­ness fo­rum is the most im­por­tant busi­ness meet­ing of its kind in Cu­ba be­cause it show­cas­es in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties on the is­land, high­lights the north Caribbean is­land’s eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment prospects and al­so con­sti­tutes an ex­cel­lent busi­ness plat­form for new com­pa­nies.

FI­HAV’s web­site al­so states that de­spite two years of the COVID pan­dem­ic, FI­HAV 2022 was suc­cess­ful re­sult as com­pa­nies from more than 60 coun­tries were rep­re­sent­ed, there were 20 of­fi­cial del­e­ga­tions and 30 cham­bers of com­merce, where im­por­tant com­mer­cial agree­ments were signed.

“Many ques­tions were raised at the last T&T Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries (TTC­SI) we­bi­nar that was held. Lat­er this year in No­vem­ber, Cu­ba will host the Ha­vana In­ter­na­tion­al Fair. That’s an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty for ex­plo­ration to cre­ate some­thing more spe­cif­ic and look for op­por­tu­ni­ties. We are en­cour­ag­ing for­eign in­vestors and we have pri­or­i­ty ar­eas, ac­cord­ing to the na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment plan,” she said.

Olite spoke at a lun­cheon host­ed by the TTC­SI at the Chan­cel­lor Ho­tel in St Ann’s.

It is part of the TTC­SI’s Do­ing Busi­ness with the World Se­ries.

TTC­SI’s mem­bers, who took part in the fo­rum, asked the Cuban Am­bas­sador dif­fer­ent ques­tions re­lat­ing to in­vest­ment op­por­tu­ni­ties, Cuban in­fra­struc­ture and how to make pay­ments us­ing the Cuban bank­ing sys­tem.

Olite al­so said that the Cu­ba’s Deputy Prime Min­is­ter, who al­so holds the port­fo­lio of Min­is­ter of the Econ­o­my Ale­jan­dro Gil, re­cent­ly said the coun­try is tak­ing im­por­tant steps to grow the econ­o­my de­spite on­go­ing chal­lenges.

Ac­cord­ing to in­ter­na­tion­al news re­ports, speak­ing be­fore Cu­ba’s Par­lia­ment, Gil said Gross Do­mes­tic Prod­uct (GDP) growth would be 2 per cent in 2023 and this is eight per­cent­age points be­low pre-pan­dem­ic pe­ri­ods.

The am­bas­sador blamed the 61 year US eco­nom­ic block­ade of the is­land for cre­at­ing dif­fi­cul­ties but added that de­spite this sit­u­a­tion, Cu­ba con­tin­ues to in­vite for­eign coun­tries to do busi­ness with it in the ar­eas of tourism, food pro­duc­tion and en­er­gy.

“The block­ade can ham­per trade. Some banks don’t want to do busi­ness with Cu­ba. The block­ade af­fects the qual­i­ty of life of or­di­nary Cubans.”

Cu­ba eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery

Pres­i­dent of the TTC­SI, Mark Edghill, who al­so spoke at the meet­ing re­ferred to the Cuban Econ­o­my’s Min­is­ter’s ac­knowl­edge­ment of the the is­land’s slow pace of eco­nom­ic re­cov­ery post-pan­dem­ic.

“I know you and your coun­try­men are con­cerned by the slow pace of re­cov­ery be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced, as re­vealed by Deputy Prime Min­is­ter Ale­jan­dro Gil on­ly re­cent­ly. I read a re­port in which he lament­ed the fact that for­eign cur­ren­cy just isn’t be­ing earned quick­ly or ex­ten­sive­ly enough, mean­ing that the lit­tle growth achieved is a bit be­low ear­li­er pro­jec­tions. Al­though the Ho­n­ourable Deputy Prime Min­is­ter was heart­ened by your coun­try’s per­for­mance in the tourism sec­tor over the past year or so.”

Edghill al­so spoke about the last we­bi­nar the TTC­SI had where Cuban of­fi­cials spoke about the op­por­tu­ni­ties for lo­cal con­trac­tors in Cu­ba’s con­struc­tion sec­tor. He re­mains hope­ful that busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties will arise form this.

“We ea­ger­ly an­tic­i­pate what ben­e­fits the T&T con­struc­tion sec­tor could reap from ex­po­sure to Cu­ba’s ex­per­tise in sus­tain­able and eco-friend­ly con­struc­tion prac­tices. We al­so look for­ward to team­ing up with you again be­fore the year is out on an­oth­er Cu­ba-cen­tric we­bi­nar.”

Edghill said the TTC­SI’s Do­ing Busi­ness with the World Se­ries is de­signed to help small and medi­um en­ter­pris­es (SMEs) in the ser­vices sec­tor find each oth­er, re­gard­less of where in the world they are.

He said it is about bring­ing hope to a sec­tor that saw a com­bi­na­tion of dev­as­ta­tion and rapid growth as a re­sult of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, de­pend­ing on the sub­sec­tor in which re­spec­tive SMEs were lo­cat­ed.

Edghill al­so spoke about the lat­est Stan­dard & Poor’s rat­ing for T&T say­ing this could trans­late in­to more for­eign in­vest­ment dol­lars for the coun­try.

“This ap­pears to be ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a boost in earn­ings from our non-en­er­gy ex­ports based on da­ta re­cent­ly shared by our Trade Min­is­ter. We al­so are con­cerned about our own growth fig­ures match­ing up to pro­jec­tions. At TTC­SI, we un­der­stand how im­por­tant it is for all of us small is­land de­vel­op­ing states in this post-pan­dem­ic era to not on­ly sur­vive, but to thrive. We know that small does not have to trans­late in­to help­less or in­signif­i­cant. Both our coun­tries have been punch­ing far above their weight glob­al­ly in many dif­fer­ent sec­tors and fields of en­deav­our, and must con­tin­ue to do so.”

In De­cem­ber 1972, the gov­ern­ments of Bar­ba­dos, Guyana, Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go es­tab­lished diplo­mat­ic re­la­tions with Cu­ba.

T&T has an em­bassy in Cu­ba, whose top diplo­mat­ic is Chargé d’Af­faires Shiv­ani Ma­haraj, ac­cord­ing to the Min­istry of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs web­site.