Post-Fidel Cuba sending biggest team with a shopping list

Led by Cuba’s Deputy Foreign Trade Minister Eduardo Antonio Escandell Amador, the 26-member delegation will comprise officials and business leaders from Cuba. Cuba’s ambassador to India, Miguel Angel Ramirez Ramos, told The Indian Express, “This is the largest business delegation from Cuba in the history of India-Cuba relations, coming from both government and private sectors, which is coming here to look for business partners and suppliers of a whole range of products. Time is ripe for bilateral ties and trade to take a leap.”

The team will land in Delhi on May 17 and will be spending most of the time in the Capital, before going to Mumbai. They fly back on May 28. The team from Cuba has a huge shopping list: members from the power enterprises in Havana are looking for power equipment for their transmission and distribution system, officials from Medicuba are looking for suppliers of medicines and medical equipments, and a marketing head of a Cuba-based appliance firm will be looking for suppliers of home appliances, vacuum cleaners, and a representative from the Cuban textile ministry will be looking for cloth suppliers.

Ramos said, “In the ‘80s, the trade between India and Cuba was to the tune of $300 million, which is now down to $30 m. We want the bilateral trade to come back to the same level as that in the past. That is our immediate target, and then we can grow from there.”

Cuba’s bilateral trade with China is pegged at $3 billion, Ramos says, which is 100 times more than India. “There is a lot of scope in growth of trade ties between the two countries, which has slipped downwards in the last 15 years due to financial difficulties on both sides,” he said.

The visit assumes significance as the last four years of Left supported-UPA government have witnessed increased diplomatic activity between India and Cuba. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh visited Havana to attend the NAM Summit in September, 2006. Union Ministers Rao Inderjit Singh, Anand Sharma, Mani Shankar Aiyar and Vilas Muttemwar too have visited Cuba.

A cultural exchange programme was signed in Sept, 2005, an MoU on consumer protection in Sept, 2005, a cooperation agreement in sports in February, 2007, and a protocol on cooperation in new & renewable energy was signed in May, 2007.

Ramos, however, said that the ideological dispensation has never come in between India-Cuba relations. He also refuted reports of lifting the ban on computers and cellphones by the “biased western media.” “Electrical equipment were not allowed since the country was suffering from power crisis. Now that the power situation has improved, these electrical gadgets are being allowed,” the Cuban ambassador said.