September 26, 2006

US poultry companies cash in on Cuba

Cuba, the last bastion of Communism in the western hemisphere, is attracting US food companies by the dozen.

The irony is that the US, the epitome of democracy, is the largest food supplier to the country, where US imports account for 30 percent of total food imports.

A loophole in US law created in 2000 that allowed American food to be sold in Cuba has turned what was a half-a-century trade embargo into a market generating half a billion dollars in sales each year.

Cuba is a world apart from the closed communist regime and ideology that most people make them out to be, said Kirby Jones of the US-Cuba Trade Association, adding that hundreds of companies now do business with Cuba.

Three years ago, Cuba was purchasing about US$1.7 million in poultry from the United States, according to Ron Sparks, Alabama's Commissioner of Agriculture. Now that figure has exploded to about US$57 million.

Exporters are now wondering: if figures are so impressive now, what would it have been like if trade relations are normalised. 

With Cuba ever eager to court legions of American tourists and American companies rushing to cash in on the nation, only American law stands in the way.