A group of American businessmen visited Havana this Tuesday to discuss “about the possibilities of doing business, scientific exchanges, cooperation and instruction,” according to Latin Press.
The president of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce (CCC), Antonio Carricarte, highlighted “the potential” for the island’s “entrepreneurs”, whom he divides into “traditional”, that is, state-owned, and private, to “promote the export to the United States of products such as honey, coffee and coal”.
In this regard, the official did not say that these are products that already have an outlet in the European and Canadian markets, and that Cuba does not have the capacity to increase production with its current economic rules.
Carricarte also spoke of the “possibility” that the MSMEs Cuban women can “connect with their American counterparts. Likewise, he assured that this is “the first action” of a program that includes “a work agenda” for the rest of the year.
Among the American businessmen who attended the CCC stands out Hugo Cancio, owner of the supermarket on-line Katapulk and one of the island’s émigrés who maintains closer commercial ties with the Havana regime.
The note in the official agency does not mention Cancio, which mentions two rather unknown names: Jorge Ignacio Fernández and Mark Baum
The note in the official news agency does not mention him, which mentions two rather unknown names: Jorge Ignacio Fernández, as a representative of the Hope for Cuba Foundation, and Mark Baum, as “collaboration director” of the Food Marketing Institute.
The founder of the first, which sells itself as an NGO that “promotes independent activity in Cuba to strengthen Cuban civil society,” told Prensa Latina that, after this meeting in Havana, “the next step will be to hold a forum in Washington to show how to trade with Cuba”.
Fernández said that they are not only interested in trade, but in “working on issues such as sustainable energy, and even with medical device companies interested in making Cuban vaccines.” These –Abdala, Soberana 02 and Soberana Plus– have not yet been recognized by the World Health Organization.
As for Baum, who “works in the consumer packaged goods industry and has more than 30 years of experience,” he said he was interested “in knowing the Cuban market to determine in which areas it is possible to collaborate.”
Both businessmen, the official agency pointed out, “agree on the effects caused by the US blockade of Cuba and on the inclusion of the island on the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.” Despite this, says the Prensa Latina note, they highlighted that “there are small possibilities that should be taken advantage of in favor of trade.”
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