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CUBA SQUEEZED BY HIGH OIL, LOW SUGAR PRICES. Cuba's leaders have called for fuel-saving measures and cuts in energy imports to offset a financial squeeze caused by high oil prices and low prices for sugar, the main traditional export, reports CANA-Reuters (March 17, 2000). "We have to save fuel and reduce its import," Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage told local government officials in comments reported by the Communist Party Daily Granma. Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said high world oil prices and low world sugar prices had cost the Cuban economy US$38 million in the first two months of this year alone.
NEW U.S. EXHIBITIONS PROPOSED. As a result of the success of the U.S. Healthcare Exhibition, held January 25-29 in Havana, PWN Exhibicon International (based in Westport CT) has applied to the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the U.S. Treasury Department for a license to hold: (1) a U.S. Food and Agriculture Business Exhibition in December 2000; (2) A U.S. Healthcare Pavilion at the February 2000 "Health for All" biannual trade show; (3) a U.S. Healthcare Exhibition focused upon dental products; (4) a U.S. Healthcare Exhibition in 2002. Details: U.S.-Cuba Trade & Economic Council. Tel: 212-246-1444. Email:
FRANCE RENEWS FOOD BARTER DEAL. France has renewed a food-for-sugar barter deal with Cuba that will cover 70% of the island's wheat and flour needs, said the Finance Ministry in Paris, reports CANA-Reuters (February 21, 2000):.
. The agreement was worth US$180 million, roughly the same as the previous year's deal. The barter deals were started in the 1990s in response to a U.S. embargo on doing business with Cuba, which has become the third-largest non-EU destination for French wheat after Egypt and Morocco. In 1998/1999 France exported 714,000 tons of cereals to Cuba, the ministry said. Cuba traditionally imports around one million tons of wheat per year, according to the International Grains Council;
French traders know their big slice of the Cuban food market could dwindle if Washington were to one day put aside its political opposition to trading with Havana. Pressure is already mounting from the U.S. farm lobby. The American Farm Bureau estimated in 1998 that U.S. sales of wheat, corn, soy and other farm products to the island could exceed US$500...