|
CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Hungering for trade with Cuba
Puerto Rican exporters
aim for more food trade contracts.
By Larry Luxner , Special
to The Herald. Posted on Mon, Aug. 23, 2004.
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - Despite its relative
proximity to Cuba and a common language
and culture, Puerto Rico is landing only
a tiny fraction of the contracts that the
Castro government is awarding to U.S. food
companies.
Some Puerto Rican exporters would like
to change that.
Salvador Vassallo, president of the Puerto
Rico Export Council, which represents about
50 local companies, says his group is trying
to arrange a trade mission to visit Havana
in October -- though that might prove difficult
given tough new U.S. regulations on visits
to Cuba enacted June 30 by the Bush administration.
''A lot of people are interested in exporting
to Cuba,'' said Vassallo, who is also president
of Vassallo Industries, which manufactures
PVC products at a factory in Ponce.
CHANGE IN 2003
Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, exported
a mere $54,000 worth of farm products to
Cuba in 2003, down from $448,000 the year
before, but those numbers may be deceiving.
''There was a change in 2003, because shipments
started going from San Juan to Havana via
Jacksonville, so those were not counted
as coming from Puerto Rico,'' said Antonio
Sosa Pascual, executive director of Compañía
de Comercio y Exportaciones de Puerto Rico,
a government agency. "We believe the
real figure is between $500,000 and $1 million
a year.''
Even if that's the case, the Puerto Rican
exports pale when compared to those from
the United States.
Although most trade between the United
States and Cuba is prohibited under U.S.
sanctions in place for more than four decades,
a 2000 American law created an exception
to the embargo, allowing for the direct
sale of American farm goods to Cuba on a
cash basis. Since Cuba began purchasing
U.S. food under the law in late 2001, Alimport,
the Cuban government food purchasing agency,
has imported around $600 million worth of
U.S. farm commodities.
Sosa said vegetables and root crops such
as yucca constituted more than 36 percent
of all Puerto Rican exports to Cuba by value,
cereals accounted for 16 percent of exports
and sugar and candies 7.7 percent.
So far, the Puerto Rican company that has
profited the most from exporting to Cuba
is Pan American Grain in Bayamón.
LARGE RICE SHIPMENTS
Eduardo Fernández, the conglomerate's
Caribbean export manager, said Pan American
has shipped more than $500,000 worth of
rice to Cuba for both institutional use
and for sale in dollar stores.
''We've also successfully exported our
line of beans and lentils. In some months,
we've shipped six or seven containers to
Cuba,'' he said.
Pan American, which has plants in Bayamón,
Cataño and Vega Alta, is the island's
largest agroindustrial company and its largest
processor and distributor of rice and animal
feed. The company, which is also in the
beverage business, was the first Puerto
Rican company to sign a contract with Alimport.
Not all food companies with Puerto Rican
roots, however, are enthusiastic about trading
with Cuba. Their reasons range from personal
convictions against doing business with
the Castro regime to business considerations,
such as the threat of boycotts from irate
Cuban-American consumers in South Florida.
Speaking at a CCE conference on Cuba this
summer, Sosa said the two islands have certain
affinities that should help promote trade:
"Despite the large differences in economic
development, Puerto Rico and Cuba are very
similar in terms of culture and history.
Cubans feel comfortable with Puerto Ricans
and vice-versa. There's a lot of trust.''
In fact, Puerto Rico and Cuba are often
referred to as ''dos alas del mismo pájaro''
-- two wings of the same bird -- because
of their shared history under Spanish colonial
rule.
Following the 1959 Cuban Revolution, Puerto
Rico's relative prosperity and Spanish-speaking
culture attracted many Cuban exiles. At
least 20,000 of them now live in Puerto
Rico, where they have dominated certain
sectors of the local economy, most notably
advertising and the media.
With Cuba off-limits to U.S. tourists,
Puerto Rico's tourism industry took off
after the revolution, and it could be the
first to suffer if a U.S. travel ban against
Cuba is lifted some day.
DELICATE ISSUE
Marta Acevedo, an executive at PricewaterhouseCoopers
in San Juan, says ''it's only to the advantage
of Puerto Rico'' to trade with Cuba. But
she said ''it can be a very delicate issue
for some people'' who may not want to see
the embargo lifted.
''Puerto Rico had lucrative tax incentives
[under Section 936 of the U.S. Internal
Revenue Code], but now we don't,'' Acevedo
said. "It's dwindling away, so Puerto
Rico is looking at new options within its
territorial constraints. I think there are
definite opportunities to utilize the companies
that are already set up in Puerto Rico to
also have branches in Cuba.
''I see a distinct possibility of doing
some sort of joint venturing. It's either
that, or one day we'll be competing with
a market that's 10 times as large as ours,''
Acevedo said.
Not all Puerto Rican companies are finding
it easy to sell to Cuba, however.
Ricardo Pastrana Amaro, an official at
Distribuidora Vázquez in Caguas,
said his company has shipped just one 20-foot
container of evaporated milk, worth $21,000,
to Cuba.
''We shipped it, but I haven't been able
to get down there,'' he said. "I tried
to get the license [from the U.S. Treasury
Department], and I was denied. They didn't
give me any reason. But I'm planning to
apply again, to see if we can ship some
more. We would like to export some of our
juices to Cuba.''
NO CONTRACT
Bayamón-based Master Foods Interamerica,
a division of Mars, sent its regional business
development manager, Miguel Alvarado, to
the 2002 food show in Havana. Alvarado returned
to Puerto Rico with commitments from Alimport
to buy Snickers, Milky Way, M&M, Skittles
and Twix candy products for Cuba's dollar
stores.
In April, Alvarado met again with Alimport
officials at a second conference in Havana.
But no contracts were ever signed.
''Alimport confirmed interest in purchasing
our confectionary brands,'' said Felipe
Bellande, the company's regional marketing
manager. "But that doesn't mean anything
until they effect payment in compliance
with U.S. Treasury Department regulations.
Until that happens, it's just mere speculation.''
Sysco in talks with Cuba
The giant U.S. food distributor
hopes to increase sales to island's tourism
industry.
By Anita Snow, Associated
Press. Posted on Mon, Aug. 23, 2004.
HAVANA - Giant American food distributor
Sysco Corp. said it's working with Cuban
officials to increase sales to the island's
tourism industry under an exception to the
U.S. trade embargo.
So far, the Houston-based company has sold
only about $500,000 worth of food to the
communist country since late last year,
said David Dickson, president of the company's
Alabama operation.
But as North America's largest food distributor,
potential for increased trade is huge. Sysco
already distributes food products to more
than 420,000 restaurants, schools, hotels,
hospitals and other customers in the United
States and Canada.
Dickson told a news conference earlier
this month that Sysco's Alabama operation
was working with the Cuban food import officials
"on a strategic plan to provide world-class
food products to the tourism industry.
''Our scope is not limited to hospitality,
however,'' he added.
Dickson indicated that other potential
markets for Sysco in Cuba include institutions
such as hospitals.
''We believe that Sysco has huge business
opportunities in the Cuban market,'' said
Pedro Alvarez, chairman of Cuba's food import
company Alimport.
The two men spoke at a major Havana hotel,
where a conference room was set aside to
display many of Sysco's products, ranging
from poultry and corn dogs to canned peaches
and cheesecake.
In June, Sysco acquired a Florida company,
International Food Group, to expand its
presence outside of North America. Terms
of the deal weren't disclosed.
International Food, which is based in Plant
City, had sales of $77.8 million last year.
It supplies products to fast-food restaurants
in the Caribbean, Central and South America,
Europe, Asia and the Middle East.
Cuba rejects post-hurricane aid offered
by U.S. government
Posted on Mon, Aug. 23,
2004.
HAVANA - (AP) -- Cuba on Monday rejected
the U.S. government's offer of $50,000 in
post-hurricane aid, calling the gesture
hypocritical and the amount humiliating.
''This cynical and hypocritical offer by
the government of the United States to ease
Hurricane Charley's effects ignores the
damage caused over more than four decades
by the economic war of successive (American)
administrations against our country,'' Cuba's
Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried
Monday in the Communist workers' weekly
Trabajadores.
The offer was announced by the U.S. State
Department in Washington on Aug. 13, the
same day Hurricane Charley battered western
Cuba on its way to Florida.
''Cuba will not accept supposed help from
the government of a country that harms us
and tries to take us under with hunger and
need,'' the statement added, referring to
long-standing restrictions on trade and
travel aimed at undermining Fidel Castro's
communist government.
''It's obvious the American government
suffers from total amnesia,'' the statement
said.'
Rafters helped open entry door
The 1994 Cuban 'balsero'
crisis brought significant shifts in U.S.-Cuba
policy, plus a little-noticed infusion of
legal migrants.
By Nancy San Martin, nsanmartin@herald.com.
Posted on Sun, Aug. 22, 2004.
In the shadow of the best-known and most
controversial result of the Cuban balsero
crisis in 1994 -- the wet foot/dry foot
policy -- more than 230,000 Cubans have
legally immigrated to the United States
in the past decade.
That quiet inflow of Cubans represents
nearly seven times the 35,000 would-be migrants
who wound up at the U.S. Navy base in Guantánamo
Bay -- another of the searing images from
those days when Cubans by the tens of thousands
took to inner tubes, homemade rafts and
other flimsy vessels in desperate bids to
cross the Florida Straits.
To persuade Cuban President Fidel Castro
to end his anyone-can-leave policy, the
Clinton administration officially promised
Havana it would guarantee legal entry for
at least 20,000 Cubans each year.
CASTRO'S DESIRE
It was something that Castro always wanted,
said Michael Kozack, who was the top U.S.
negotiator in migration talks with Cuba
after the 1980 Mariel boatlift and served
as the top U.S. diplomat in Havana from
1996 to 1999.
After Mariel, Kozack said, Cuba demanded
that the United States take in 50,000 migrants
a year -- a figure the Carter administration
rejected.
''In '94, when they unloaded on us again,
one of the first responses of the United
States was to give them what they wanted,''
Kozack said. "In order for them to
shut down the uncontrolled migration, we
decided to give them . . . the 20,000 as
a minimum rather than a maximum.''
''One of the interesting things I find
about Cuba is that it's probably the only
country in the world that tries to export
its people,'' Kozack added during an interview
in Washington, where he now serves as the
principal deputy assistant secretary of
state for democracy, human rights and labor.
On the island, the balsero exodus created
a frenzy.
Neighbors pooled money and supplies to
build the flimsy watercraft. Families huddled
to determine who should go first. And tears
flowed across Cuba's shorelines as loved
ones waved goodbye, not knowing whether
they would make it to the other side.
The U.S.-Cuba migration accords, signed
in 1994 and 1995, immediately served to
halt the illegal departures from Cuba and
eventually allowed most of the 35,000 balseros
who were detained in Guantánamo,
after being intercepted at sea, to reach
the United States.
And over the next 10 years, more than 230,000
Cubans received U.S. visas and arrived at
U.S. airports with far less notice than
their 1994 balsero or Guantánamo
compatriots or the 3,000 who now reach U.S.
shores illegally in an average year.
The policy of returning most Cuban would-be
migrants caught at sea and allowing those
who make it to U.S. shores to stay -- the
wet foot/dry foot policy -- remains controversial
in Miami to this day.
Only a small percentage of Cubans found
at sea nowadays qualify for asylum by establishing
a well-founded fear of persecution. The
vast majority are quickly returned to Cuba
by the U.S. Coast Guard.
''About 85, 90, 95 percent of those interviewed
say they are coming to the United States
because they want a job,'' said Kevin Whitaker,
the State Department's coordinator of Cuban
affairs. "That doesn't meet the credible-fear-ofpersecution
standard.''
A PROBLEMATIC POLICY
And the 1994 policy of temporarily detaining
Cuban balseros in Guantánamo had
its problems.
Miami's Guarioné Díaz, president
of the Cuban American National Council,
a social service group, was tapped to serve
as a liaison between the Cubans held in
Guantánamo and the U.S. government.
In his first visit there, Díaz said,
he saw hundreds of Cubans pressed against
the wire that ringed the refugee camps,
shouting "Where is my child? When are
we leaving? Help us!''
''It was really a very, very sad scene,''
said Díaz, who fled Cuba two years
after Castro rose to power in 1959. "I
didn't know the details of what was happening
in Washington and wasn't privy to the politics.
My duty was to help the refugees. I was
consumed by that.
''After being at the base after a few days,
I knew there was no way the refugees were
going to be there a long time,'' he said.
"The living conditions were such that
it was impossible to keep them there for
very long.''
The Cuban camps in Guantánamo were
emptied within a year, with Washington using
the 20,000 visas-a-year promised to Havana
to allow them into the United States.
But in order to fulfill the quota in subsequent
years, the U.S. held three lotteries for
Cubans seeking to leave. About 189,000 Cubans
registered for the first lottery in 1994.
Another 433,000 signed up in 1996, and 541,000
registered in 1998.
''More than a quarter of a million Cubans
have come to the United States,'' Whitaker
said. ''That is a sizable percentage of
the population'' of about 11 million.
''The positive way to view this argument
is that we are providing an outlet for any
Cuban who desires to leave,'' he said. "We
have a moral obligation . . . to take in
people who are being persecuted in their
own country.''
U.S. military aircraft transmit Radio
and TV Martí to Cuba
Posted on Sun, Aug. 22,
2004
Cuban-American lawmakers cheered Saturday
as U.S. military aircraft transmitted Radio
and TV Martí to Cuban audiences --
one of the Bush administration's new tactics
to undermine the Castro regime.
''For the people of Cuba to get an unfiltered
transmission of information is a great thing,''
said U.S. Senate candidate Mel Martínez,
who co-chaired the presidential commission
that recommended the flights.
Martínez said White House staffers
called to deliver the news that C-130 cargo
planes had managed to override jamming efforts
by the island's communist government.
President Bush allocated $18 million in
May to pay for the flights, though lawmakers
said the frequency and timing of future
broadcasts would remain classified.
''It's a wonderful day for the enslaved
Cuban people, and I'm sure Castro is enraged
and finding new and devious ways to block
the transmissions,'' said U.S. Rep. Ileana
Ros-Lehtinen, R-Miami.
-- KARL ROSS
|
