Cuba Trade Fair Showcases Mariel Port Project

Cuba Trade Fair Showcases Mariel Port Project



HAVANA, Nov 4 (BERNAMA-NNN-XINHUA) -- The 31st Havana International

Trade Fair opened Sunday with the focus on Cuba's new Mariel Port

special development zone in a bid to attract more foreign investment.



About 1,400 companies from more than 60 countries are attending this

year's fair, making it the largest edition in the past 11 years, with

the greatest number of exhibitors from Spain, Venezuela, Brazil, South

Korea, Panama and Germany, organisers said.



The week-long fair, which runs till Saturday, features the presentation

of new products, including three types of rum and cigars, but the

central attraction is the Mariel Port, which is poised to become one of

the largest container shipping port in the Caribbean after an expansion

of the Panama Canal is completed in 2015.



Cuban Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca is

scheduled to give a speech Tuesday touting the benefits of investing in

the port development zone, which offers companies tax breaks and other

incentives to establish production operations there.



In recent weeks, Malmierca has been touring Vietnam, China and Russia to

promote Cuba's new investment opportunities. Brazil, which largely

bankrolled the Mariel Port project, has voiced its interest in investing

in the development zone located on Cuba's Mariel Bay, 45 kilometres west

of Havana.



Havana decided to build the new port after it came to the conclusion in

2009 that the Bay of Havana could not be expanded to accommodate larger

ships that will begin passing through the Panama Canal in 2015.



The project was launched in 2010 as a Cuba-Brazil joint venture with an

investment of US$900 million. The first 700- metre stretch of dock is

scheduled to be ready in December and to be officially inaugurated by

Cuban President Raul Castro and his Brazilian counterpart Dilma Rousseff

in January 2014.



Source: "BERNAMA - Cuba Trade Fair Showcases Mariel Port Project" -

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v7/wn/newsworld.php?id=990696