In the last year, such important sectors as tourism, construction, logistics, mines, energy (especially renewables) and some agricultural and forestry affairs have occupied the leading role when it came to capital employed in investment programs.

In this journey, dependence on a single market or country has been overcome, because investors and with them the origin of foreign capital have differentiated.

It is a positive fact that, in spite of the ever stronger US pressure on the Island in 2019, several deals have been materialized in promising spaces such as Mariel’s Special Development Zone (ZEDM) or in key spheres of the economy such as the tourism. Equally, other actors have begun to gain space in foreign investment on the Island.

Havana International Fair (Fihav-2019), the most important event in this sector Granma conversed with the General Director of Foreign Investments of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (Mincex), Déborah Rivas Saavedra, who reported that this year important events were carried out in Cuba and abroad, which ratify the interest of foreign investors to do business in our country.

MAINTAIN AND GROW
One of the most representative spaces, assured Déborah Rivas, is the Cuba Initiative Forum, which was attended by British entrepreneurs, as well as other Business Forums with other countries in which the theme of the extraterritorial Helms-Burton Law was treated in a special way of the United States that claims to tighten the economic, financial and commercial siege imposed on the Island.

The main objective factor that today hampers the growth of foreign investment is the economic, with all its perverse rules, which create a dissuasive effect on possible foreign investors who wish to do business with Cuba.

All this siege has also increased with the measures of Donald Trump, of this year, to prevent the arrival of fuels, reduce family remittances and the application of the totality of the III Title of the Helms-Burton Law, which allows activate claims for potential claims against foreign investors with established business or that, it is assumed, fiddles with properties legitimately nationalized by the Cuban government.
To overcome this setback, business forums have been set up with Russia, Vietnam, France, Portugal and Turkey, among others, to reinforce the bonds in this sphere with these nations.

The XVI International Expocaribe Fair 2019 was held in Santiago de Cuba, with several days of business patrols and presentations of new products for the Cuban and Caribbean markets, with the participation of 80 companies and 300 exhibitors from 25 countries.

MARIEL’S ZED CONTINUES ITS DEVELOPMENT
The Mariel Special Development Zone continues to grow and is recognized as one of the most promising spaces in the investment sector.

The ZEDM has 49 approved businesses, of which 41 with foreign capital from 21 countries, with an investment amount exceeding 2200 million dollars.