Weekly Report - 24 July 2014 (WR-14-29)

CUBA | Chinese accords. President Raúl Castro signed 29 new bilateral agreements with China after welcoming President Xi Jinping to Havana for the final leg of his four-nation tour of the region on 22 July. The accords range from finance and infrastructure to biotechnology, agriculture and renewable energy. “No matter how the international situation changes, it will be a set policy of China to develop a long-term friendship with Cuba,” Xi said. This would have been very reassuring for Castro. China is Cuba’s second-most-important trade partner, with a bilateral trade volume of US$1.4bn in 2013, behind Venezuela, from where Xi arrived having extended another massive credit line to buttress the country’s faltering economy.
Xi and Castro agreed to set up protocols to oversee the quality of the tobacco and sugar that Cuba exports to China. China will supply the cash for a new terminal at the port of Santiago de Cuba. The two presidents also discussed the ins and outs of the new foreign investment law which took effect last month as part of the ‘structural and conceptual changes’ introduced by the Cuban government. These were inspired by the reforms of Deng Xiaoping between 1979 and 1983 in China, which departed from socialist economics while preserving the political status quo.
Xi also visited Cuba’s veteran leader Fidel Castro. “You are the founder of the causes of the Revolution and the construction of Cuba, and you are the founder of relations between China and Cuba,” Xi said. He presented Castro with a 175-kg bronze bust of his youthful likeness. Castro regaled him with news about studies and investigations he has been conducting into ways to increase food production.

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