CUBA.
US FARM IMPORTS US$600 MILLION.
Despite the embargo in place on Cuba by the United States, farm exports to Cuba by the US, increased for $484 million in 2007, to $600 million in 2008.This figure will be greatly increased for the current year.
Venezuela and China, are the main trading partners with the Island, followed by Canada and Spain.
Despite the embargo’s, the USA is in fact the fifth largest trading partner. The new government has freed up local farming on the Island, in recent months allowing the farmers to switch into private enterprise, as opposed to collective farming for the state.
Cuba imported US$ 10 billion last year, against exports of only US$3.7 billion.
Prior to the revolution in 1959, Cuba was a world leading exporter of sugar, tobacco and coffee.
Since the fall of the old Soviet Union and its financial assistance, Cuba has had to join the real world of trade, which has caused the change in farming policy.
President Christina Fernandez de Kirchner is on a 3 day visit to the island, the first by an Argentine president in 22 years.
