Lucas Rodrigues Reporter TV Brasil and Renata Giraldi Reporter Agência Brasil
Havana – President Dilma Rousseff arrived in Cuba last night and will have a busy day today. She will pay her respects at the grave of Jose Marti (1859-95), a national hero, political thinker, and leader and martyr of the Cuban independence movement. She will also have lunch with the Cuban president, Raul Castro.
In the afternoon, Dilma will visit the Porto de Mariel, located 50 kilometers from Havana, where as part of a strategic project the port is being expanded, modernized and transformed into an industrial center. A glass factory is being built there. Brazil is financing some 80% of the construction that will cost a total of $683 million.
Dilma arrives at a moment of great changes in the economy of Cuba with economic relations high on her agenda as she seeks partnerships and bilateral agreements in a number of areas: technical, scientific and technological endeavors mainly in agriculture, food security, health and production of medicines.
Raul Castro has called for a “change of mentality,” and authorized free market sales of cars and real estate for the first time since the Cuban Revolution over 50 years ago, as well as the opening of small businesses. There are also plans for the voluntary retirement of hundreds of thousands of civil servants.
Cuba’s economic difficulties have been exacerbated by the American embargo (in place since 1962) and the collapse of the Soviet Union that subsidized the Cuban economy during decades.
Allen Bennett – translator/editor The News in English
