Cuba Economic Czar visits Brazil
HAVANA TIMES – The strongman of the Cuban economy, Marino Murillo, began Thursday a working visit to Brazil, where he met with Brazilian Vice President Michel Temer, states the Cuban foreign ministry.
Murillo, who is also one of seven Cuban vice presidents, examined issues with his hosts such as trade, investment, cooperation and development aid between the two nations.
Cuba-Brazil business ventures are part of the effort of the government of Raul Castro to diversify his country’s markets.
Currently, Brazil is financing projects in Cuba in sectors such as food, agriculture and infrastructure, among which are the promotion of genetically modified crops in the center of the island, and the mega-port of Mariel Bay, west of the capital.
The big question is – There is a lot of money from Brazil coming to Cuba – but who is the owner of this money ??? My guess – China !!!
until cuba gives free reign to the private sector it will continue to limp along. china and vietnam learned this but the cubans havent thus far. but that’s what happens when the economic policy makers learned their craft in the soviet union. the slogan that comes from that experience is “we pretend to work and they pretend to pay us”. the ones making it in cuba now get remittences from families in the US.
Mega-port? The Port of Mariel is one-tenth the size of the Port of Long Beach in California. As international ports go, it will barely qualify as a ‘small’ port once the current channel deepening project is completed. Right now it is not even capable of receiving supertankers. Wow, what an exaggeration! Anyway, no big deal that Murillo is in Brazil. What does he have to sell that Brazil does not already have five-fold? If he is on a buying trip, with what money? The only thing he has to offer is cheap labor. The Brazilians are as good as Americans at expoiting wage-labor so why not? Just for giggles, Murillo is the “strongman of the Cuban economy”? His only twenty-something daughter ‘defected’ to the US last year via Mexico crossing the border declaring political asylum under the wet foot-dry foot policy. I guess she did not see the same ‘strength’ in the economy that her father sees.