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Cuba
set to negotiate US agricultural imports
Yahoo!
News.
HAVANA, 25 (AFP) - Cuba has plans to spend
up to 150 million dollars on food imports
when officials sit down Monday with US agribusiness
representatives, the head of the state importing
agency said Friday.
The United States has maintained a trade
embargo on Cuba since February 1962, but
in 2000 the US Congress authorized food
and medicine exports to Cuba on a cash-and-carry
basis.
Pedro Alvarez, the head of the state importing
monopoly Alimport, said that some 250 US
business representatives will be at the
talks, which are expected to carry on through
Wednesday.
From 2000 to the end of 2006 Cuba racked
up agricultural imports from the United
States alone worth more than 2.3 billion
dollars, Alvarez said.
US agricultural imports include corn, rice,
beans, peas and grains. Prices however have
been rising for these products in the last
months due to an increased demand for biofuels.
Cuban imports from the United States however
began to drop off in 2005, when Washington
changed the rules and demanded advance cash
payments for all its exports.
Cuba imports the bulk of its agricultural
products from Asia, South America and Europe.
Total agricultural imports amount to some
1.6 billion dollars a year, Alvarez said.
Cuba annually buys up to 40,000 tonnes
of potato seeds, mainly from Canada and
Holland. But last week they negotiated purchase
of potato seeds from the US state of North
Dakota, Alvarez said.
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