By Pascal Fletcher. The Financial Times. Published: June 9 2000 19:24GMT | Last Updated: June 9 2000 22:02GMT
With the possibility that US congress will pass controversial legislation lifting restrictions on food sales to Cuba later this month, the island's communist government is braced for offers from US farm exporters and food producers.
In the last two years, a small army of US agricultural representatives, food industry executives and farm state politicians have visited Havana to size up the market. Travel licences granted by the US government under an expanded "people-to-people" contact programme have boosted this
flow in recent months.
On Friday, a group of US business executives including William Wilson, the president of Pepsi Cola, and executives from William Wrigley, chewing gum manufacturer and United Airlines, were told by Cuban officials they were missing out on investment opportunities to their European competitors,
while the US embargo stayed in place.
They were preceded earlier in the week by two executives from US Wheat Associates, a Washington-based organisation which promotes US wheat exports and receives funding from the US Department of Agriculture.
At a seminar hosted by Cuba's foreign trade ministry, Paul Dickerson and Mitchell Skalicky briefed an audience of Cuban state food importers, millers and bakers on US wheat - what types were available for sale and what their best end-use might be - bread, pasta or animal feed.
They also identified the nearest US ports, which would offer big freight savings compared with importing goods from Europe.
A proposal to ease the 38-year-old US economic embargo against Cuba to allow generally unrestricted food and medicine sales to the island is before the US House of Representatives. If passed, it would open a significant chink in the long-running US sanctions.
Mr Dickerson, vice president of overseas operations for US Wheat Associates, is confident that if the trade restrictions were lifted, US wheat exporters could win "a piece of the action" in Cuba, where the annual import bill for foodstuffs is around $700m.
But it is still not clear whether the initiative will gain passage through the House. Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers - many reflecting pressure from US farmers complaining that sanctions rob them of valuable markets - are supporting the Cuba proposal, included in an agricultural
appropriations bill.
But Republican leaders in the House, who traditionally oppose rapprochement with President Fidel Castro's government, have been trying to block the Cuba amendment. The motion is expected to go to a vote next week.
The Senate overwhelmingly approved a similar trade measure last year. House Democrats say President Bill Clinton will sign the legislation if it is passed by Congress.
The Cuban government says the food and medicine sales initiative is "a move in the right direction" but maintains its demand for a complete elimination of the US economic embargo.
Cuban officials have been cautious so far about committing themselves to US purchases. David Hillman, Arkansas Farm Bureau president said Cuba's state food import company Alimport told him it was ready to negotiate 50,000 tonnes of rice immediately.
Lack of financing facilities might be one obstacle to immediate US sales, as the initiative before the House does not include a provision for US export credits of the kind that currently back French wheat sales to Cuba.
But supporters of easing the sanctions say the most important thing is to take the first step.
© Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2000. |