Directors of Special Development Zone located in the mega port of Mariel announced the approval of two foreign investment projects, out of the hundreds submitted since 2013. The news confirms the participation of Mexican meat company Richmeat SA CV, while maintaining hidden the identity of the second.
According to the deputy director of the Regulatory Office ZEDM, Yanet Vázquez, both companies are legalizing their status in Cuba. “By a principle of confidentiality and protection towards negotiators, the office will only make this information public when companies are officially registered,” the executive said during the annual Scientific Seminar of the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy.
At that meeting, Vazquez added that the sectors most represented in the portfolio of proposals “are industry, logistics activities and renewable energy” and mainly from Europe (Spain, Italy, France and Portugal) and America (Panama, Mexico, Brazil and Canada), although offers from economic powers like China and Russia are also analyzed.
Most companies interested in investing in Mariel are totally of foreign capital, said the representative of the ZEDM, who decided not to advance further information on the subject until the end of the first half of the year.
Throughout 2014, said the director, they worked to create the basic conditions of infrastructure and public services for the organic functioning of the Area. Ground transportation routes by road and rail as well as water supply and electricity were expanded, as well as communications.
However, it will not be until early 2016 “when we can attract more rapid strides investors to Mariel,” said Vazquez. According to her forecast, on that date the results of a study of territorial planning will be presented and other of market requested by the ZEDM to “prestigious foreign firms”.
The executive said that, on a par with those investigations, the work to make the Zone ready advances at ” good pace”. They have significantly reduced the previous bureaucratic mechanisms to the new Foreign Investment Law through a “new system” for the management of permits, licenses and authorizations.
Qualitative changes introduced by the Cuban government in receiving foreign investors in Mariel are motivated by the enormous expectations of development that the project promises. According to official estimates quoted by AFP, is expected that through the Zone enter Cuba about 2.5 billion dollars annually, which would ensure a GDP growth above 4.5% each year.
The presence of the presidents of Cuba and Brazil at the opening of Mariel also indicates the magnitude of the project; the port can receive large ships of Post-Panamax generation. It is expected that ZEDM, which has a modern container terminal and it is connected by road with several airports, part of the novel marine transportation system that will emerge when the Inter-oceanic Canal of Nicaragua becomes operational.
The aim of this work is to allow the transit of “megaships” directly from the Pacific Ocean to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, to connect Asia with Central America and Europe.
