Cuban Entrepreneurs Visit the U.S.A. for Business Discussions

One of the main goals of the visit is to promote the potentialities of Cuba’s maritime-port sector, particularly the new deep-water port in the Mariel Special Development Zone

A delegation of Cuban entrepreneurs will start a visit to the United States on Saturday until February 3 to discuss business opportunities and foreign investment in the Caribbean island.

According to a press release from the Cuban Embassy in this capital, one of the main goals of the visit is to promote the potentialities of Cuba’s maritime-port sector, particularly the new deep-water port in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM, in Spanish).

The Cuban delegation is made up of ZEDM General Director Ana Teresa Igarza; Jose Sosa Barrios, deputy director of the Container Terminal Mariel S.A.; Eradis Gonzalez de la Peña, chair of Almacenes Universales S.A.; Rene R. Fernandez, director of Maritime and Fluvial Transportation at the Ministry of Transportation, and other official.

During their stay in the United States, the Cuban entrepreneurs will fulfill a busy schedule, including visits to six U.S. ports and the signing of memorandums of understanding between the National Port Administration of Cuba and the ports of Florida and Alabama.

The delegation will also meet with executives from the Chamber of Commerce of the United States and the American Association of Port Authorities, as well as congress people, state authorities and U.S. business people from different sectors.

Cuba and the United States reestablished diplomatic relations in July 2015. Over the past few months, the two countries have signed dozens of agreements and memorandums of understandings in several sectors of interests.

However, Cuban authorities consider that the main obstacle to the process of normalization of relations is the economic, commercial and financial blockade that Washington has imposed on the island-nation for more than half a century.