Trade with Cuba a real challenge

Friday, September 4, 2009
Trade with Cuba a real challenge
New Mexico Business Weekly - by Kevin Robinson-Avila NMBW Staff

The Navajo Nation's ambitious but futile efforts to sell food goods to
Cuba since 2006 bode poorly for Gov. Bill Richardson's aim to open trade
relations with the island nation.

Richardson visited Cuba from Aug. 24 to 29 with three Cabinet
secretaries to explore opportunities for agricultural exports by New
Mexico producers. Such sales are now allowed, thanks to a federal
decision in 2000 to loosen the nearly 50-year-old U.S. trade embargo
against Cuba.

But Tsosie Lewis, CEO of the Navajo Agricultural Products Industry, said
the immense challenges of conducting business with Cuba undercut NAPI
efforts to take advantage of trade opportunities.

Lewis has led two of three NAPI trade delegations to the island since
2006. He even negotiated a letter of intent signed by Alimport – Cuba's
state food purchasing agency – to buy NAPI products.

Trade with Cuba a real challenge - New Mexico Business Weekly: (7
September 2009)
http://www.bizjournals.com/albuquerque/stories/2009/09/07/story1.html?ana=from_rss