Cuban President Raúl Castro visited China and Vietnam in early July on his first visit to either country since he formally took over from his brother Fidel in February 2008. He stopped over in Russia en route back home, his second visit to the country. Marino Murillo, the main architect of Castro’s tentative economic reforms, spent a week in Beijing in late February, where he met China’s deputy PM Hui Liangyu and spent much of his time at China’s national reform and development commission.
China’s President Hu Jintao, who has visited Cuba three times, emphasised that political and economic relations between China and Cuba “have continued to deepen and develop” and announced eight new agreements in support of those ties. He gave few details but alluded to fresh Chinese financial aid, including a new interest-free loan and a credit-line for joint sectors like health care and technology. China-Cuba bilateral trade was worth US$1.8bn in 2010 (the last available Cuban figure), up from US$590m in 2004. China supplies Cuba with manufactured goods and equipment, while Cuba provides China with about 14% of its nickel requirements (for steel production), as well as sugar, rum, cigars and high tech medicines and vaccines. Cuba’s anti-lung cancer vaccine, CimaVax-EGF, developed by the Cuban-Chinese Biotech Pharmaceutical Ltd, is undergoing trials in China. China’s Sinopec provided the Scarabeo 9 deepwater drilling platform currently off Cuba’s northern coast. The lack of official statistics makes it difficult to estimate Cuba’s total debt with China but according to a 2010 European Union report, it was of the order of US$3.2bn in 2008.
Vietnam is Cuba’s main supplier of rice, with bilateral trade worth some US$269m in 2010. The secretary general of Vietnam’s Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong, visited Cuba in April and urged Castro to stick with his version of doi moi. Warmly welcoming Castro on 11 July, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin said that relations had become “more pragmatic”. Bilateral trade of US$224.1m in 2011 “does not correspond with potential” noted Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov. Russian companies including the oil firms Zarubezhneft and Gazpromneft are present in Cuba.
Worth noting: Cuba’s foreign investment law will be updated by the end of the year, according to Yamila Fernández, finance director at the external trade and foreign investment ministry.
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