Business News America.
Thursday, March 15, 2001
Montreal-based integrated aluminum company Alcan (NYSE: AL) is negotiating a
deal to open up a new market in Cuba, company officials told BNamericas.com.
It has provisionally agreed to supply sheet aluminum from its Pinda plant in
Sao Paulo, Brazil, to a state-owned aluminum can maker associated with the state
brewery in Holguin, west Cuba.
"The agreement, which has yet to be fully defined, is to supply 3,500t
of sheet steel over 12 months. We hope then to be able to renew the contract for
a longer time and to become Holguin's only supplier," said Joao Carlos
David, export manager for Alcan Brazil.
The new can plant successfully completed trials late last year and is ready
for the first sheet aluminum from Alcan. There was no shipment date yet, said
David.
The plant has a 250mnpy-can capacity, intended to make beer cans for the
neighboring brewery only. "They will not be making any cans for soft
drinks, as far as I know," said David.
Alcan's new business opportunity was made public by the 'Economic Eye on
Cuba' weekly publication from the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council, which
describes itself as the largest non-political, non-partisan business
organization in the US focusing on Cuba.
The US trade embargo on Cuba prevents Alcan supplying aluminum from its US
operations, but there were no problems in exporting from Brazil, the company's
Montreal-based spokesperson Marc Osbourne told BNamericas.com.
The US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council said individuals and entities subject
to US law hold 23.84% of Alcan's registered shares.
In 1994 the US government's Office of Foreign Assets Control told the
council's president John Kavulich that US investors could make a secondary
investment in a third-country business which has commercial dealings with Cuba
provided they did not end up with de facto control of the third-country
business, and the company did not derive a majority of its revenues from
business activity in Cuba.
BNamericas.com | 