During the last Havana International Trade Fair, an interesting piece of news came out, but the Cuban media hasn’t covered it sufficiently. Maybe it is to deemphasize it. Maybe they think is wise not to give too much credit to such a step, but the opening of the sugar industry to foreign capital is decisive proof that the Cuban government has set on a path to deconsecrate the canons of the Cuban socialism pantheon.
After 1959, a few ghosts have been so recurring mentioned as the 1970´s harvest that, seen 20 years later, is an example of what we want: a melting pot of what we were, of what we are and what we tried to be.
A country that threw itself to the sugar fields in that naïve and wonderful childhood of revolutions, seized by the fascination of the utopia, with the scapular of their unique and irredeemable poverty, when everyone thought it was possible to beat the evil one, take off once and for all, move away from the line of fire the Cold War was, obtain economic freedom from the soviets, evade the unavoidable influence of their real and dystrophic socialism. To make it simple, reaching the 25-million pound harvest was a direct pass to adulthood, with all its benefits and enough knowledge to move forward on our own.
Sugar, as a metaphor, as sweat, as evident cause, as poetic risk, has marked, and will continue marking the origin and destiny of this country. Among the many hazards of the 1990s, the closing of the sugar mills was by far the most traumatic, and with it, the losing of the leadership of the sugar harvests within Cuba’s economy. It was one of the hardest, irrefutable blows. Unburied towns, people wandering without a goal.
However, the news that the AzCuba group signed contracts with the Brazilian Companhia de Obras em Infraestrutura (COI) and with British Havana Energy, might arise certain hopes to a sector that needs, as many others do, of foreign participation. COI will run for 13 years, the Cienfuegos 5 de Septiembre sugar mill, while the British company will build a power plant using biomass from bagasse and marabou.
Three basic conclusions come out of these deals, with a great deal of interest for everyone:
First: the main and largest privileges of the much-needed foreign investments Cuba will have in the next years, disregarding in which sector, will go for Latin American enterprises. That matches the Cuban government’s integration policy that now seems closer than ever. Second: that a power country like the UK invests in Cuba can mean that the European Union will renew its financial bonds with Cuba. Third: many other business, and contracts, that the government seems willing to do will be created. It is a smart decision, but beyond that is natural since we need to grow.
Author
Carlos M. Álvarez
