With the Port of Mariel, Cuba Reassesses its Geographical Position

With the Port of Mariel, Cuba Reassesses its Geographical Position /

Miriam Leiva

Posted on February 20, 2014



HAVANA, Cuba , January www.cubanet.org – The position of the Port of

Mariel has revalued the geographical importance of Cuba, lost with the

end of the Cold War. The soldiers who for 46 years were the support of

the government, when they began to direct everything in mid-2006 they

found a country undercapitalized, productively and humanly.



General Raul Castro has moved the troops towards economic ends to

confront the disaster that can not be overcome, despite his

straitjacketed reforms that don't encourage hard work and creativity to

supply imports and increase exports.



As his travels through the friendly countries failed to achieve a

financial injection for core investments and the replacement for the

possible reduction or loss of petrodollars from Venezuela, he seems to

have taken advantage of the changes in the XXI century, to preserve the

fifty-year revolution, the "unity in diversity" of CELAC, beyond

militant ALBA.



The transit of senior officers of the Armed Forces to create civilian

businesses in innovative sectors began in the late 1980s and,

especially, with the debacle of the "Special Period in Peacetime" and

the loss of subsidies from the Soviet Union and other countries of real

socialism.



In the early '90s, Fidel Castro authorized the company Gaviota to engage

in tourism, the TRDs or stores for the recovery of hard currency, and

Raul Castro sought the implementation of the successful business system

in the Revolutionary Armed Forces, but passing into the civilian sector

without the conditions of organizational control military did not give

the same results. From here much of the current entrepreneurs emerged.



The Port of Mariel is the only great monument built by the Revolution

and will remain as a legacy of Raul Castro. Companies of the Ministry of

the Armed Forces appear to have met the schedule and built a quality

container terminal , inaugurated by the president and his Brazilian

counterpart Dilma Rousseff last January 27.



Upon completion of all the works, perhaps it will join the seven wonders

of Cuban engineering, like the Albear aqueduct, from the nineteenth

century, still in use. Furthermore, the Special Development Zone boost

the national economy. Stark contrast to the legacy of destruction across

the country, critically wrought over previous decades.



Undoubtedly, President Jose Inacio Lula da Silva and his successor, Mrs.

Rousseff, calculated well the positioning in an economically asphyxiated

Cuba. The Brazilians arrived in a big way to "help confront the northern

neighbor," to open American trade and tourism. The companies of the

competitive Yankees advance with the best technology in the world.



Of course, it also entered the current priority calculations: Super

Post-Panamax vessels, the Panama Canal expansion. In the Cuban press

reports it was noted that the top leaders of the works are executives of

the Brazilian company Odebrecht — the principal in the project — and

Raul Castro said the administration of the container terminal will be in

charge of one of the largest port operators in the world. Lamentable

guarantee that inexperienced Cubans will not hard the adequate functioning.



As a prelude to the opening, the advantages of foreign investment in the

Mariel Special Development Zone have been divulged. Russian, Chinese,

German, British, French, Italian and Brazilian companies of course are

mentioned as interested. The approach of the Mexican president could

follow the same course. However, investors need guarantees that the old

law doesn't offer. Hence a new version has been promised.



As the project only benefits those who desire to hide their problems and

arbitrariness, a greatly cultivated style in Cuba for decades, the

presence of more European Union countries and the United States could be

advantageous to the competence of the best economic opportunities, most

advanced technologies, training, sources of jobs and less dependence.



Cubanet, 31 January 2014, Miriam Leiva



Source: With the Port of Mariel, Cuba Reassesses its Geographical

Position / Miriam Leiva | Translating Cuba -

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