Madrid/Thousands of kilometers from Melissa, Manuel Marrero is spending these days in Saudi Arabia, where he arrived on Saturday to participate in the IX Future of Investment Initiative Forum, which began this Monday and ends on Thursday the 30th. From the visit to Riyadh, the Cuban prime minister hopes to bring constant benefits, as is usual. And, although the official press has given space to minor news this Tuesday, the investments of the Arab kingdom are more than important for the regime.
Marrero, who was Minister of Tourism for 15 years, met this Monday with Ahmed Bin Aqeel Al-Khateeb, head of the sector in Saudi Arabia, to sign a memorandum of understanding to “promote sustainable tourism development” on the Island. According to official information, the agreement “provides for the exchange of information and experiences in marketing, tourism promotion, human capital formation and good practices in sustainable tourism legislation.”
There is no more concrete data on this area in which links have to date been scarce, although Aqeel Al-Khateeb, who is also president of the Board of Directors of the Saudi Fund for Development (FSD) – which has operated since 1975 –, positively valued the “long-standing collaboration in Cuba” in this field, to which Noticiero Estelar continued to define tourism as the locomotive of the Cuban economy, despite the collapse of sector data.
In 2013, the FSD financed two projects for Havana, one for Camagüey, another for Cárdenas (Matanzas) and one more for Jatibonico, in Sancti Spíritus.
The Arab leader expressed interest in “continuing working” to strengthen collaboration in “economic-commercial” spheres, which has been very useful for the official press to review the kingdom’s generosity in previous years. The most benefited by the FSD has been the hydraulic sector, which has received more than 146 million dollars for “rehabilitation and completion of the construction of aqueduct, sewage and drainage networks in various regions of the country”, a plan with very poor results in light of the fact that more than 3 million Cubans have water supply problems. And it’s not all due to the drought.
In 2013, the FSD financed two projects for Havana, one for Camagüey, another for Cárdenas (Matanzas) and one more for Jatibonico, in Sancti Spíritus. The money has been used for all types of works, from water treatment plants to pipelines, supply networks, sewage and drainage, and there is more to do. “Now we are building the distribution center with two 10,000 cubic meter tanks and a waste treatment plant, which will benefit some 187,000 people,” Antonio Rodríguez Rodríguez, president of the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources, told the official press.
With this money, the Lebrije dam conduit will also be built, in Jatibonico, “the Santa Clara supply and sanitation project is progressing, and the second phase of the Camagüey aqueduct will be executed, adds the official. last year it was revealed that the project to rehabilitate Trinidad’s hydraulic system – with a foreign loan from the Gulf countries valued at 25 million dollars – had been stopped due to non-payments. The debt with the FSD was, along with that of Kuwait, the only one that was renegotiated.
Another of the sectors irrigated with Saudi money is food, also with little – if not none – visible effects. There are no updated figures, but Isander Aguilar Pérez, director of the Projects and Engineering Company of the Ministry of Agriculture (Minagri), explained that with the money from the fund, more than 90 irrigation machines were purchased for 3,500 hectares and drip systems with fertilization for bananas in Ciego de Ávila, Holguín and Isla de la Juventud.
Rolling machines for food production, irrigation machines powered by solar energy and an import of 2,000,000 tons of resin have also been acquired, with which “more than 60% percent of all the pipes that support the rehabilitation of the hydraulic infrastructures of the main agricultural centers have been manufactured,” he added.
The official press has given ample, but discreet, space to this issue, which also included the improvement in the vegetable program “deteriorated by lack of financing” and for which “parts and pieces were imported that benefit more than 80 hectares of protected crop house systems.”
Marrero held a no less important meeting on Sunday, although little has emerged from the meeting. Fahad Bin Abdulrahman Al-Jajel, head of Health, signed two agreements with the Cuban Prime Minister, one for the promotion of direct investment and another for air services.
Fahad Bin Abdulrahman Al-Jajel, head of Health, signed two agreements with the Cuban Prime Minister, one for the promotion of direct investment and another for air services
The parties expressed their intention to move towards “new horizons” under “the example of the public health sector, in which progress has been made and we are working hard.” Since 2013, Cuba and Saudi Arabia have had an agreement for the hiring of Cuban doctors that has led to more than 600 health workers – according to figures provided in 2024 by the Government – to work in the kingdom. The State receives about $10,000 per month for each one, although they only receive a stipend of $1,000. In addition, there are specific agreements for the biopharmaceutical industry and the promotion of health tourism in Matanzas, but now – they stated – they are in a position to expand the ties.
Marrero has promised more openness for Saudi investment, as President Miguel Díaz-Canel already did with Asian countries during the recent tour of Vietnam, China and Laos, or months ago in Russia. “We have been opening ourselves to foreign investment as a fundamental component in the economic development strategy; numerous measures have been approved in order to stimulate and facilitate it,” said the prime minister, who invited the Saudis to actively participate in the next Havana International Fair, which will be held from November 24 to 29.
For now, the most concrete thing that the head of Government will take away for the Island is the – discounted – vote in favor of the resolution that asks the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the US embargo, and which is discussed this Tuesday. To remember there are at least two operations suspected of embezzlement of funds: one, the one that the Government carried out with the contribution that the FSD carried out to rehabilitate 24 homes in Havana for “families who found themselves in complicated accommodation situations.”
With that money, the Historian’s Office undertook other buildings in the buildings at Obispo 202 and Cuba 653, in Old Havana, which were renovated with “great comfort” and destined, according to the neighbors, for “very select families.” The FSD, the pharaonic work of Fidel Castro Ruz Centeropened in El Vedado at the end of 2021. Then, a source from the Havana Historian’s Office confessed to 14 and a half: “The credit was supposed to be for housing, but they took a part for the Center and the Capitol as well.”
