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Thu Jun 6, 6:45 Pm Et . By Anita Snow, Associated Press
Writer. Yahoo!
HAVANA (AP) - Now that U.S. food shipments are arriving regularly in Cuba,
the communist government has agreed to let an American company arrange an
exposition here this fall that could whet appetites for more U.S. fruits, grains
and other foods.
PWN Exhibicon International LLC of Westport, Conn., announced this week
that it had Cuba's final approval to organize the U.S. Food & Agribusiness
Exhibition in Havana later this year at a still unscheduled date, probably in
the fall.
The company said the U.S. Treasury Department (news - web sites) earlier
granted it a license to organize the trade fair in Cuba — a necessary legal
step because the island remains under a four-decade old U.S. trade embargo.
Cuban government approval followed.
"We are confident that this idea will contribute to increased trade
between our two countries," Pedro Alvarez Borrego, president of Cuba's food
importing concern Alimport, wrote in telling PWN Exhibicon's Peter Nathan of the
decision.
About 150 U.S. companies, as well as agricultural agencies and
organizations, have expressed interest in participating in the five-day trade
fair, PWN Exhibicon said.
They include several firms that have recently sold food to Cuba, such as
Archer Daniels Midland Co., of Illinois, which PWN Exhibicon says will be a
sponsor.
Poultry producers Gold Kist Inc., of Georgia; Perdue Farms Inc., of
Maryland; Radio Foods of Massachusetts; and rice producer Riceland Foods, of
Arkansas, are among companies planning to exhibit, PWN Exhibicon said.
"There is no more cost-effective way to introduce products to a new
market than through participation at an exhibition," Nathan said in a
statement Wednesday.
Nathan, who helped organized the first U.S. trade exhibitions in the former
Soviet Union in the early 1970s and in China in 1980, organized a U.S.
government-licensed exposition of American health care products in Cuba in
January 2000.
Communist officials first agreed to buy American food last November to
replenish its reserves after Hurricane Michelle battered central Cuba. A law
backed by the U.S. agricultural sector passed in 1999 allowing American farmers
to sell food to Cuba, but Cuba had refused to buy U.S. goods because they said
the law did not go far enough.
Since then, Cuba has bought, contracted or confirmed its intention to buy
about 572,000 tons of U.S. agricultural products worth about $90 million, John
Kavulich of the New York-based U.S. Cuba Trade and Economic Council said
Thursday.
"We are past learning how to do these transactions," Kavulich
said. "We are now into normalizing commercial relations."
Food purchased includes corn, rice, wheat, soy, poultry, vegetable oil,
apples, peas, eggs and pork lard. Deliveries are scheduled through at least the
end of this month.
American food companies have pushed for legislation to allow U.S. financing
for food sales to Cuba. Currently, American food sales to Cuba must be conducted
on a cash basis. | 
