The company Esencia Hotels and Resorts, from the UK, and the Cuban Palmares SA, signed a partnership for the creation of centers of world-class golf in Cuba, with an investment of 350 million dollars. The project The Carbonera Golf & Country Club is the first and most important investment of a British company in the Cuban tourism, and has been valued as a symbol of the opportunities offered by Cuba for foreign investment . This company will be responsible for the construction of an exclusive community of 650 apartments for tourism with high purchasing power . The project’s website remembers its positioning puts Cuba only 90 miles south of Florida in the United States. The project suggestive slogan is “Same Cuba. New Passion “. A dispatch from the Italian ANSA news agency states that Essence must be followed by others, since it is expected the approval of another proposal with Chinese capital, later this year, and moreover propositions are analyzed from Spanish, Vietnamese and Russian companies. Cuba is in talks with more than 10 foreign firms and some of them ” have been signed or are concluding letters of intent for possible developments in various cities and tourist destinations,” Minister of Tourism Manuel Marrero said recently.
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Since last June 4, when the government company ETECSA opened the service Nauta, with that provided for the first time a commercial solution for public Internet access in Cuba, about 11 000 people have responded to the offer and have become new users. Considering the enormous pent-up demand in the country, with an Internet penetration of only 16 percent of the population, the low figures probably indicate the suspected shortage in service and solvency in other potential consumers. Nauta service is based on prepayment of permanent and temporary connection levels, priced at 4.50 CUC (about 5.00 USD) per hour of full internet browsing, 1. 50 CUC / h for international mail and domestic browsing and 0.60 CUC / h for domestic email service only. ETECSA itself, when announcing the service admitted that rates were high but justified it by explaining the need to raise currency that expand the infrastructure and, gradually increase the volume of supply and then it would lower prices. So far 118 rooms were enabled for navigation across the country, but is expected before the end of 2013, another ten new ones in Pinar del Rio, Ciego de Avila, Camaguey and Havana open to work. It was also reported that they install new Wi-Fi networks and gradually all dial-up networks will be replaced by ADSL technology.
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The World Trade Organization (WTO) again heard the particulars of a dispute which holds the European Union since 1999, and other countries as plaintiffs plus the support from Cuba, for modifying a 1988 U.S. law allowing the Bacardi-Martini group to market its rum under the Havana Club trademark since 1994. The WTO ruled in favor of the EU in 2002 and ruled that U.S. law violated international law, forcing the U.S. to adapt a reasonable time. As a complainant, the EU has granted more time on several occasions to Washington to observe the ruling. Sources close to the organization told AFP that “it is time for Washington to resolve the matter” while U.S. diplomats said that there is a new bill is in the hands of legislators in the United States. The law to be corrected or repealed prohibited Havana Club Holdings, a joint venture of the French Pernod Ricard and Havana Rum and Liquors of Cuba, owner of the Havana Club trademark, to use U.S. courts to sue the Bacardi-Martini .
