By Joe Sharkey. The New York Times.
The New York Times. January
10, 2001
Last year, about 3,400 business travelers went to Cuba from the United
States," said John S. Kavulich, the president of the U.S.- Cuba Trade and
Economic Council, a nonpartisan business group based in New York.
"The biggest contingent was in January of last year during the U.S.
Health Care Exhibition, which was a United States-government-sanctioned event
that drew 97 companies and 300 participants" to Havana, he added. "The
last time that many adults from the United States visited Cuba at one time was
the Bay of Pigs in 1961. But this time, instead of guns, the Americans carried
pieces of paper saying they could sell things. They were far more successful."
Mr. Kavulich was being sardonic to illustrate the reality that many
businesses, and more than a few business travelers, are beginning to appreciate.
Despite four decades of an American trade embargo that goes back to darkest days
of the cold war, global business is being done at an increasing clip in Cuba,
which is rapidly modernizing its communications and service industries to
accommodate it. And more Americans are getting in on the boom.
For detailed, timely financial and trade information about current
conditions in Cuba, I recommend consulting www.cubatrade.org. This is the Web
site of Mr. Kavulich's group, whose members include major corporations that are
among the 115 United States-based businesses now operating in Cuba under various
special licenses, and other companies contemplating connections to the expanding
Cuban market.
Some business analysts estimate that trade between Cuba and the United
States could reach $5 billion annually — about 70 percent of it from
American exports — within five years of normalization of political and
economic relations between the two countries. Which helps to explain why
business travel, while still modest, is growing sharply. In 1994, about 500
Americans visited Cuba on business, the trade group said, compared with last
year's estimated 3,400.
Some business travelers return after having visited on leisure trips, which
have been growing more rapidly. For the last five years, tourism to Cuba has
been expanding about 10 percent annually, as more American-based airlines obtain
licenses to transport passengers and cargo on charter flights from Miami and New
York. Last year, an estimated 140,000 Americans visited Cuba, some of them
participating in the growing number of culturally oriented group tours sponsored
by museums and schools.
Of course, foreign companies are not hamstrung by the Miami-exile- based
blood feud that keeps the embargo in place. While American companies gingerly
explore openings, careful not to be too public about it for fear of retribution,
foreign companies are moving rapidly to exploit opportunities in
telecommunications, tourism, retail sales and other growing areas of the
long-stalled Cuban economy, which is still tightly monitored by custodians of
the revolution wary of any drift back toward the pre-Castro days when the
island's economy was under foreign corporate domination. There are currently 370
foreign companies involved in joint ventures with Cuban concerns, according to
the trade council.
Because of the embargo, which is occasionally modified as political
pressures ebb and flow, American businesses need special licenses for commercial
activity in Cuba. By and large, purely American-owned business activity in Cuba
doesn't go beyond trade shows, exhibitions and a range of allowable projects to
identify and explore investment opportunities in agriculture, medical supplies,
telecommunications, and other fields defined by the United States Treasure
Department. The department has a Web site (www.treas.gov/ofac) that provides a
detailed overview of the current regulations under the embargo.
"There are groups of U.S. businessmen who are coming here quite
regularly, but they are not able to close any deals; they're basically able to
explore opportunities," said Philip Agee, a former agent for the Central
Intelligence Agency who spends his time between Germany and Cuba, where he runs
a Havana- based Web site, www.cubalinda.com, that provides tourism information
about Cuba and allows potential visitors to book hotels and arrange package
deals.
"They're coming in groups all the time, but they're not able to do any
business for well-known reasons," Mr. Agee said in a telephone conversation
from Havana.
"Cuba, as an island, has always depended on trade, and the tradition
hasn't been lost" since the revolution, said Mr. Agee, whose name, like so
much else connected to Cuba, evokes strong associations with cold war
controversy. He quit the C.I.A. after 12 years as an agent in Latin America and
in 1975 wrote a book, "Inside the Company: C.I.A. Diary," that made
allegations of C.I.A. misdeeds and included a 22-page list of names he said were
C.I.A. operatives. That led the United States to revoke his passport.
Today, Mr. Agee said he was happy to promote Cuba as a thriving tourist and
business destination. Last year, the Cuban government began a campaign to
rejuvenate Havana's tourist spots. The number of hotel rooms has grown to more
than 35,000 in five years, and many hotels are rapidly adding high-speed
Internet service and other amenities intended to appeal to corporate travelers.
"There is no question they're targeting the traveling business
community," Mr. Agee said. "At the Nacional, the grand dame of hotels
in Havana, the 6th floor is now an executive floor dedicated for business
travelers, with a business center and excellent phone and Internet connections."
Mr. Kavulich, meanwhile, agreed that communications improvements had been
remarkable in Havana, which was once a shabby backwater where getting a phone
call out was a matter of good luck or good influence.
Asked to explain the difference between the first time he visited Havana on
business in 1986 and the most recent visit last year, he summed it up in nine
words: "First trip, no cell phones. Now, great cell phones."
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company |
