El Salvador, Cuba reach trade agreement

El Salvador, Cuba reach trade agreement

Officials from El Salvador and Cuba concluded negotiations of a
partial-reach agreement that promotes bilateral trade by providing
import duty discounts for certain products, El Salvador's economic
minister announced in San Salvador.

The agreement is the last of many in a larger Cuban strategy to "never
again put our eggs in the same basket," said the Cuban ambassador in El
Salvador, Pedro Pablo Prada Quintero, according to El Economista. Over
the past two decades, Cuba has signed partial-reach agreements with most
Latin American nations.

Products included in the agreement are poultry, seafood, tropical fruit,
oil seeds, fats and cooking oil, chocolate, bread, juices, rum, vodka,
tobacco, cement, pharmaceuticals, hygiene products, plastic products,
and paper and carton.

Tariff discounts aside, the agreement includes stipulations for market
access, rules of origin, sanitary measures, technical obstacles to
trade, and conflict settlement mechanisms.

Trade between the two countries has ranged between $4 million and $5
million per year recently.

The agreement comes after three rounds of negotiation, which also
included talks about scientific and technological cooperation,
innovation, and technology transfer.

http://www.cubastandard.com/2011/09/17/el-salvador-cuba-reach-trade-agreement/