An Giang Province, in the southern Mekong Delta, produces 2.4 million
tons of rice per year
By Tom Hargrove, PlanetRice
Editor-in-Chief. June 18, 2001.
LONG XUYEN, AN GIANG PROVINCE, VIETNAM--An Giang Province, in Vietnam's
rice-rich southern Mekong Delta, will open an office in Cuba to promote
bilateral trade, according to the Voice of Vietnam on June 16.
Rice trade will be a priority; Cuba has said that it wants to import more
Vietnamese rice.
The agreement was reached on June 14 by a delegation of the Cuban Foreign
Trade Ministry, led by Estrella Madrigal Valdes, deputy minister for imports and
exports, and An Giang People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Minh Nhi.
Nhi informed the Cuban guests of his province's economic and export
potential. An Giang produces 2.4 million metric tons of unmilled rice, 60,000
tons of fish, and tens of thousands of tons of vegetables and peas annually. The
province earns US$150 million yearly from exports of leather footwear, garments,
and rice.
An Giang can provide Cuba's market with rice, fish, pork, poultry, peas,
leather shoes, and ready-made clothes, the broadcast stated.
Jobs will be created for both sides if An Giang supplies semi-finished
footwear products and sewing machines to Cuba to finish the products. He also
said that An Giang need to import Cuban sugar and medicines for the treatment of
heart disease and hepatitis.
Cuba wants to increase the amount of rice it imports from Vietnam, Deputy
Minister Valdes said. She and An Giang officials agreed that projects that
create more employment for both Cuba and Vietnam are needed. Valdes briefed the
host on her country's competitive products, including medical equipment for
heart disease treatment.
Meanwhile, U.S. rice sales to Cuba, once its biggest rice export market, are
stagnant.
Bridges to Cuban People Act
A coalition of liberals and farm state members have introduced a measure in
Congress designed to further ease the sale of food and medicine to Cuba, the
Miami Herald reported on June 13.
The Bridges to the Cuban People Act, authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd,
D-Conn., a leading critic of the embargo on Cuba, has 14 cosponsors, including
three Republicans: Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, former chairman of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee; Pat Roberts of Kansas; and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode
Island.
The companion House bill, with about 80 cosponsors, was introduced by Jose
Serrano, a Bronx Democrat and one of the Houses most liberal members, and Jim
Leach, an Iowa Republican who once chaired the Banking Committee.
New U.S. trade law doesn't allow credit; Cuba resents restrictions
The U.S. Congress last year passed a law, long awaited by the U.S. rice
industry, allowing the direct sale of U.S. foods and medicines to Cuba for the
first time in four decades. But the new legislation hasn't increased U.S.-Cuban
rice trade, because it doesn't allow the U.S. government or U.S. banks to
finance import sales, and demands that Cuba pay in cash or use third-country
credit.
The bill also prohibits reciprocal Cuban sales to the United States. Those
provisions effectively block most potential exports to the Communist island
nation, PlanetRice reported on Feb. 11.
The Cuban government especially resents the financing restrictions--which
prevent American companies and banks from giving credit directly to Cuban
buyers--that were added at the last minute by Representative Lincoln
Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, and other legislators who opposed weakening the
embargo, the New York Times reported.
Cuba ranks among the world's worst credit risks, so finding financial
institutions willing to bankroll trade will be difficult, PlanetRice reported on
Dec. 13.
An editorial in Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party,
stated that, "Our country will not acquire one penny's worth of food and
medicine in the United States."
Granma called the financing conditions "humiliating" and "unjust."
The Cuban government encouraged more than half a million people in Havana to
protest the U.S. "trade opening."
Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy visited Cuba in May and said,
"The United States trades with China. The United States trades with
Vietnam. To isolate Cuba and not trade with it is illogical."
First U.S. ship turned away from Cuba
Meanwhile, the M/V Orso, the first U.S. ship in almost 40 years to carry
U.S. products to Cuba, was to have docked at the Port of Havana on April 21. But
Cuba refused docking permission the night of April 20, the New York-based
U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council (CTEC) reported on May 2.
The Havana arrival of the Antigua-flagged container ship, leased by
Jacksonville-based Crowley Liner Services, would have been historic--the first
cargo service from the United States to Cuba permitted by the U.S. government
since 1962.
PlanetRice reported the Orso's departure on April 19, but could not learn if
the cargo included rice.
Cuban rice sales could be significant
Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, was the top U.S. rice market until 1962 when
President John Kennedy imposed a trade embargo with the communist island nation.
Cuba's annual per-capita rice consumption is about 40 kilograms, according
to statistics from the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute.
Cuba's current population of 11.2 million is projected to rise to 13 million by
2025.
A recent U.S. International Trade Commission report estimated that U.S. rice
exports to Cuba could total $40 to $59 million annually.
But it could be more. Cuba now imports 350,000 to 400,000 metric tons of
rice--worth about $110 million--from U.S. competitors, mainly China and Vietnam.
With free trade, annual rice exports to Cuba could be from 550,000 to
600,000 metric tons--20% of the United States' total rice exports, estimates
Richard E. Bell, president of the Arkansas-based Riceland Foods.
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