Cuba Eyes South Korea for Investment

Cuba Eyes South Korea for Investment
May 26, 2014
By Progreso Weekly

HAVANA TIMES — Cuba's deputy trade minister was set to arrive in Seoul
on Monday (May 26), becoming the highest ranking official from the
island to visit South Korea since the countries' diplomatic ties were
severed in 1959.

Ileana Bárbara Núñez Mordoche plans to attend an investment fair and
hold one-on-one meetings with South Korean business executives
interested in investing in Cuba, according to the Korea Trade-Investment
Promotion Agency (KOTRA).

According to KOTRA's president, Young Ho-oh, the agency "added an
investment promotion focus in the late 1990s, supporting Korea as it
overcame the Asian financial crisis. Since then, we have taken on new
and expanding roles to support Korean companies expanding overseas [...]
and to create jobs overseas."

Núñez Mordoche reportedly will promote her country's agricultural, food,
electronics, tourism and medical sectors as deserving of investments.

"Cuba has revised its law on foreign investment for the first time in 20
years to offer tax incentives to foreign investors and also to recognize
their ownership of assets in Cuba," a KOTRA official told the South
Korean news agency Yonhap.

Cuba's Law on Foreign Investment (Law No. 118), as revised in March and
published in mid-April, will take effect June 28.

KOTRA currently operates a trade information office in Havana's Miramar
Trading Center. The office opened in October 2005, three years after
KOTRA signed cooperation agreements with the Cuban centers for Export
Promotion and Investment Promotion and with the Chamber of Commerce.

Last November, 11 South Korean businesses participated in the 2013
International Fair of Havana (FIHAV). South Korean firms have exhibited
their products at FIHAV every year since 1995.

Trade between Cuba and South Korea amounts to about $100 million a year,
according to the Cuban Chamber of Commerce. Nickel has been Cuba's main
export product to that Asian country.

Source: Cuba Eyes South Korea for Investment - Havana Times.org -
http://www.havanatimes.org/?p=103889