REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT IN CUBA

Cuba Hotel Investment

CUBA OPENS FOR REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT

HAVANA (AP) — Cuba has begun allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years, a step toward a future that could be filled with golf courses ringed by luxury villas, beachfront timeshares and vacation homes for well-heeled tourists.

But while overseas developers are cheering, some caution that the communist island has been down this road before, embracing foreign ownership with an eye toward bolstering tourism revenues — only to scrap those reforms when the economy improved and profit margins no longer seemed as important as maintaining state control of commerce.

A decree that was published as law Thursday loosened property laws enough to allow 99-year leases for foreigners. A measure appearing the following day expanded self-employment, letting Cubans grow and sell small amounts of farm products out of their homes or special kiosks.

Large agricultural holdings are state-controlled, but small farmers were already allowed to work their own land. The law will allow more Cubans to do so and let them sell what they produce, but will also make them pay taxes on their profits.

The moves are significant as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the state's near-total dominance of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash.

Still, it's too early to herald a new Cuba, said John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser for the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council in New York.

"I don't think it's going to open a floodgate. I think it may turn on a tap so that people know there's water," he said.

Far more optimistic was Robin Conners, president and CEO of Vancover-based Leisure Canada, which wants to build hotels, villas and two golf courses on a stretch of beach in Jibacoa, 40 miles (64 kilometers) east of Havana.

"We see the times are changing, so to speak," Conners said.

Cuba already allowed leases of state land for up to 50 years with the option to extend them for an additional 25, but foreign investors had long pressed tourism officials to endorse 99-year lease deals to provide additional peace of mind to investors.

The longer leases also mean lower interest rates on international banking mortgages, Conners said.

"I think this is huge," he said by phone while vacationing in Paris.

Conners' company hopes to begin construction on a luxury hotel in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar next year — with the project at Jibacoa and another plan for development on Cayo Largo, a cay off Cuba's southern coast, "not far off."

Investors in Canada, Europe and Asia have been waiting to crack the market for long-term tourism in Cuba, built on visitors who could live part-time on the island instead of just hitting the beach for a few days. The U.S. bars its companies from doing business with Cuba.

The change may also help Cuba embrace golf. Investment firms have for decades proposed building lavish 18-hole courses with luxury housing for foreigners.

Despite years of grand plans, however, Cuba has just two golf courses and has yet to approve construction of any new ones — though the tourism Ministry says it would like to build 10 more.

Andrew Macdonald, CEO of Britain's Esencia Hotels and Resorts, said his company had planned to start construction last year on the Carbonera Country Club, a $300 million development outside the resort of Varadero, but is still waiting for government approval. In addition to an 18-hole golf course, Macdonald's plan calls for 800 luxury apartments and 100 villas.

"It's exceedingly good news," Macdonald said of the new rule. "It's been a long road. But having said that, it's very important for the country that they get each step right, and this is a very big step for them."


NEW CUBA REAL ESTATE LAWS
The new law makes it clear Cuba is looking to boost profits, saying the step is necessary "for the sustainable development of the country and the international economy."

While the longer-term leases could reshape international investment in Cuba, meanwhile, allowing more production and sales of agriculture products will likely have far greater impact on ordinary Cubans.

The law marks the first major expansion of self-employment since Castro said in an address to parliament Aug. 1 that his government would reduce state controls on small businesses and private enterprise — a big deal in a country where about 95 percent of people work for the state.

Cubans already sell fruit, pork, cheese and other items on the sides of highways across the country, fleeing whenever the police happen past. The new measure legalizes such practices by letting Cubans grow whatever they wish and sell it, while bolstering state coffers with new taxes on their earnings.

Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who became a dissident anti-communist and was jailed for his political beliefs in 2003 before being paroled for health reasons, called the decree "an intelligent move."

"It's good, though still something very limited," Espinosa Chepe said.

OBAMA WANTS TO LIFT TRAVEL BAN TO CUBA

AMERICANS SOON WILL TRAVEL TO CUBA
US President Barrack Obama is considering easing travel restrictions to Cuba, raising the prospect of what lifting the half-century-old U.S. trade embargo against the Communist regime might mean for both countries.
Imagine American tourists bronzing on Cuban beaches and Cuban tomatoes glowing in the produce sections of U.S. supermarkets. Or Cuban baseball teams playing in American ballparks, while U.S. ballerinas twirl on a Havana stage.
Could it mean young Cuban-Americans returning to the island to invest or revisit the culture from which their families were exiled?
Cuba Investment from America will Increase

Cuba watcher Bruce M. Bagley says there could be many advantages for both countries. "There could be closer cooperation on [interdicting] drugs. More academic contacts would be great. American agriculture wants to sell more to Cuba, and the Cubans need it," says Bagley, chairman of department of international studies at the University of Miami.
He says sanctions haven't worked and that it is time to try something else.
American Opposition To Cuba
The administration apparently isn't considering sweeping changes. Any substantive lifting of the trade embargo would require congressional action in any case, especially the repeal of the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, which extended and strengthened the sanctions.
But the changes the administration are reportedly considering now would make it possible for more Americans to travel to Cuba, including sports, cultural and educational groups, and it could expand direct flights from the U.S. to Cuba.
Obama loosened some of the restrictions last year, when he made it easier for Cuban-Americans to visit the island and send money to their relatives there.
The administration reportedly plans to announce the next round as early as next week. The proposed changes were first reported in a story by The Miami Herald earlier this month. The White House and the State Department have declined to comment on the details.
If the administration goes ahead with the reported easing, it would basically restore contacts that were allowed under the Clinton administration, but prohibited under President George W. Bush.
But Ninoska Perez-Castellon, a director of the Miami-based Cuban Liberty Council, says now is "the worst time to lift any type of sanctions against Cuba's regime," because the Castro government has shown no real inclination to change.
Perez-Castellon says there is an economic incentive to ease some sanctions against the regime coming from foreign investors who put money into Cuba's tourist industry and were left holding the bag when the island's tourist business stagnated.
USA Promoting Tourism To Cuba
"There are a lot of economic interests that would like to promote the tourism industry in Cuba, which has basically failed," Perez-Castellon says. Among them, she says, are Spanish companies that put a lot of money into hotels in Cuba, but got little return from their investments.
Tourism has been a major source of revenue for Cuba, a popular destination for visitors from Canada and Europe.
Charles Suddaby, vice president for hospitality consulting at the global real estate company Cushman & Wakefield, says Cuba attracted more than 2.4 million visitors last year and seems on track to do slightly better this year.
Suddaby says a lifting of travel restrictions for U.S. tourists could generate a huge wave of interest, but he says it would probably be better to have that process take place gradually.
"There's a lot of hotel capacity down there," he says, "But it's not all of a quality that U.S. tourists might expect."

Cubans line up to buy produce at a market in Havana in May.

Charles Suddaby says much of Cuba's tourist market came from cheap, all-inclusive packages, but that the government is now looking at a broader market, including sports tourism and luxury resorts.
Cuban Food For Cash
Agriculture is another sector where Cuba and the U.S. could cooperate if sanctions were lifted. Cuba already buys food and agricultural products from the U.S., more than $690 million worth in 2008.
The sales were authorized by the Clinton administration in 2000, under a measure that specifies that trade can only be one-way, with Cuba buying from the U.S., and only in cash.
William Messina, an agricultural economist at the University of Florida, says Cuba's food purchases from the U.S. have dipped in the past two years, in part because countries such as China, Vietnam and Thailand have offered the Cuban government better credit terms.
But Messina says further easing of restrictions could potentially stir a lot of agricultural trade between the two countries. For instance, Cuba could become a supplier of winter vegetables, such as tomatoes and cucumbers, which are currently grown mainly in Florida.
Other potential crops could be citrus and sugar for ethanol fuel.
Messina says Cuba could be a stronger market for American agriculture products, including fertilizers, pesticides and farm equipment.
All of this would be far in the future, even if the Obama administration were to make far more sweeping changes than it is currently planning. The administration has repeatedly said that it will not lift the embargo unless and until there are political and economic reforms on the island.
But Bagley says the proposed easing of sanctions is the best way "to ease the political transition in Cuba, which is inevitable, given the ages of the Castros." Bagley says that by engaging with Cuba, the U.S. could influence that transition in a positive way, rather than leaving the island with another generation of anti-American rulers.
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Cuba Releases Political Prisioners to Spain

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CUBA INVESTMENT BY SPAIN

Havana Cuba-  Spanish tourism minister predicted Cuba's release of its political prisoners is the first step that will eventually lead to a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations and the removal of  the American blockade against the Castro controlled island.

Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said the releasing of over 52 Cuban political prisoners will prompt a major shift in European Union policy in favor of Cuba "and it will have political consequences in U.S. relations with Cuba, by lifting of the embargo."


Cuba has clearly demonstrated that it is willing to cooperate in the area of human rights and has held out the olive branch to Spain. International Investors calculate that this is the beginning of the opening of the doors to Cuba for international investments lead by the Americans as soon as they lift their own restrictions on investment into Cuba.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. embassy in Madrid said, while the U.S. welcomed the release of the Cuban political inmates, it was too early to say whether that would have any effect on the embargo. And officials from France and Germany didn't share Moratinos' optimism that the release of the 52 would trigger an EU policy shift.

President Barack Obama once suggested it was time for a new beginning with Cuba, but his administration wants to see the island embrace more political or social reforms — and it's unknown if the agreement on political prisoners is enough.

The Cuban Political dissidents, who had been imprisoned since 2003, have spoken of the horrid, rat-infested conditions they endured in the Cuban prisons. Twelve have arrived in Spain so far, along with dozens of relatives, and more are expected.

Moratinos has said his European Union counterparts had conditioned any change in EU policy toward Cuba on getting the political prisoners released and he now expects the 27-nation bloc to end its "common position" on Cuba. That policy, which dates from 1996, calls for advances in human rights and democracy before relations with the island can be normalized.

But  EU foreign affairs chief Catherine Ashton, said it was too early to say if the European bloc is ready to shift direction on its Cuba policy. She said all countries needed to be back any move and it was not clear if they all share Spain's enthusiasm.

"We will have a better feeling on Monday" when foreign ministers may talk briefly about the prisoners' release, she said. But no decision is likely until September.

An official with Germany's Foreign Office said it "welcomes the current development" but added that "the EU countries have always stressed that the overall human rights situation in Cuba has to improve." The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with policy.

A French diplomat said Wednesday that the releases are a positive first step, but that the EU wants Cuba to free all its political prisoners. The diplomat was not authorized to be publicly named according to Foreign Ministry policy.

On Monday, the released Cuban prisoners in Spain said they opposed any change in EU policy toward the island.

"The Cuban government has not taken any steps that show a clear decision to advance toward democratizing our country," they said in a statement. "Our exit to Spain should not be considered a gesture of goodwill, but rather a desperate move by the regime in its urgent search for credit of any sort."

The Cuban government has long maintained that none of them is a prisoner of conscience. It insists they are mercenaries paid by Washington and supported by anti-Castro exiles in Miami, whose only goal was to discredit the Cuban government. Many of the Web sites the journalists had worked for were maintained by exiles outside Cuba.

Spain has told the former prisoners they will be given work and residency permits within a few months. It has advised them not to seek asylum status, saying such a designation would bar them from making political statements and would make it impossible for them to return to Cuba for visits.

The arriving Cubans were held for days in a very modest hotel with no air conditioning and shared bathrooms for men and women in a remote industrial zone of Madrid.

But the government started moving them into apartments outside of the capital this week because Madrid is considered a very expensive place for arriving immigrants to build new lives. Plans were also set to house the latest arrivals in a more upscale Madrid hotel until they are resettled elsewhere.

While some of the Cubans initially complained about their accommodations in Madrid, they said conditions were much better than the jails they were held in, and those who have been moved out of the capital said they were satisfied with the government's effort.

Omar Ruiz, a journalist, was sent with his wife and young son to a studio apartment in the southern city of Malaga in a building occupied mostly by African immigrants. Everyone in the building eats for free in a communal dining room, and the building is about a 20-minute walk from a beach on the Mediterranean

"I don't want to complain about the conditions, there may be others who think they could have been better," Ruiz said. "The main thing is that they helped me leave jail and get to a free country with my family, where I can think whatever I want to think. You have to recognize that, and I am very thankful."

http://Calls2Cuba.com

USA VOTE TO OPEN UP CUBA TO AMERICAN TOURIST

USA CUBA TRAVEL TO HOTELS
On June 30, 2010, the House Agriculture Committee voted to pass a new bill  HR 4645 - called  The Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which eases payment restrictions on US food sales to Cuba. Also included in the Act is language that removes the restrictions on Americans so anyone can travel to Cuba. Specifically, section 2 of the Act reads states that "The President may not regulate or prohibit, directly or indirectly, travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or lawful permanent residents, or any of the transactions incident to such travel; and any regulation in effect on such date of enactment that regulates or prohibits travel to or from Cuba by United States citizens or lawful permanent residents or transactions incident to such travel shall ease to have any force or effect."

American Democrat Speaker Nancy Pelosi will decide when to restore the bill that will allow US citizens' right to travel to Cuba will get to the House floor for a vote, however, she has stated that she is in full support of this Cuba Travel bill and will bring it to the floor in the very near future.
In Cuba and with over 130 U.S. human rights, religious, humanitarian and trade groups from around the nation have pledged their support for HR 4645.

Cuba Travel Tour Operators held a video conference with top Cuban tourism officials in Havana on Wednesday, December 16, 2009, and asked them if they are ready for the "rush" of Americans if the U.S. travel ban is lifted as proposed by legislation now under consideration in the U.S. Congress.

"Americans really want to travel and see the real Cuba for themselves," said Robert Whitely, president of the U.S. Tour Operators, which together with the National Tour Association also present at the event, handles 75 percent of all package tour business to the Caribbean.

"We predict that at least 850,000 Americans will go to Cuba in the first year," Whitely said.

A fact-finding study from the U.S. International Tourism & Trade Commission supports this, noting, "The number of additional U.S. tourists arriving in Cuba annually, following removal of the travel ban, is estimated to be between 500,000 and 1 million in the first year reaching over 5 million in the next 10 years.

CUBA HOTEL INVESTMENTS

CUBA OPEN TO BRASIL INVESTMENTS WITH PETROBRAS

Cuba Opens to Brazil’s Petrobras

HAVANA CUBA INVESTMENTS – Brazilian state-controlled energy giant Petrobras has opened an office in Cuba to “accompany” its effort to explore for oil in the communist-ruled island’s territorial waters, the company’s new representative in Havana said.

Joao Figueras, who also is CEO of Petrobras’ Venezuelan unit, told a press conference that the office will be “a point of reference” during the first exploratory phase, but that if a decision is made to advance to the drilling stage the company will expand its representation in Cuba.

For the moment, Petrobras has decided that its Caracas team will carry out the technical work in Cuba “with a view to cost management and efficiency.”

The Brazilian company currently is analyzing the results of seismic surveys carried out within the block it acquired last October in deep Cuban waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

Following geological and geophysical studies in the area, Petrobras will have until May 2010 to decide whether to begin drilling, according to the terms of its contract with state-owned Cuba Petroleo, or Cupet.

“This block represents the company’s return to Cuba. For now we’re going to manage that, but we’re open to evaluating other opportunities in the country,” Figueras said, noting that Petrobras searched for oil in the island’s territorial waters between 1998 and 2001.

“It was a perfect operation, but unfortunately the well was dry,” he said.

The Brazilian company currently has a 32-year exploration and production agreement with the Cuban government, allowing it to operate in a 1,600 square-kilometer (617-square-mile) block that Figueras said is “very well located from a geological point of view.”

Figueras said the trade and financial embargo the United States has imposed on Cuba since 1962 creates “a series of difficulties” but does not impede Petrobras’ work, adding that the company has found “solutions and paths” to drilling in Cuba in the past using contracted platforms.

“If we make the decision to drill, the company will have the means to carry out the drilling. That’s why our job now is to be very focused on the geophysical-geological work so that we make the best decision,” he added.

Also operating in Cuba’s portion of the Gulf of Mexico, an area known as the Exclusive Economic Zone that measures some 112,000 square kilometers (43,245 square miles), are Spain’s Repsol-YPF, Norway’s Statoil-Hydro, India’s Oil and Natural Gas Corporation, Malaysia’s Petronas, Venezuela’s PDVSA and Vietnam’s PetroVietnam.

Petrobras was the most recent company to acquire a block in the EEZ, bringing to 21 the number currently under contract.

Petrobras, an integrated energy company and a global leader in deepwater oil exploration and production, operates in 27 countries in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe.

Shares of Petrobras, Brazil’s largest corporation, trade on the Sao Paulo, New York, Madrid and Buenos Aires stock exchanges, but the Brazilian government retains control through a golden share.

Cupet’s exploration manager, Rafael Tenreyro, said last November that – based on “very modest” estimates – about 20 billion barrels could lie in the island’s offshore fields, while the U.S. Geological Survey has estimated a more modest total of between 4.6 billion and 9.3 billion barrels of recoverable crude.

Cuba currently imports from close ally Venezuela more than 90,000 barrels per day of crude oil – or about half the island’s needs – under preferential terms that allow the island to pay with medical, educational and sports services.

CALL CUBA NOW

CUBA TOP CARIBBEAN DESTINATION IN 2010

Cuba Is The Caribbean Top Destination

Cuba tourism officials reported that more than 2.5 million tourists visited the island in 2009, up 3.3 percent from 2008’s record. Because of shorter stays and discounts, brought on by the global recession, total revenues were down overall. Foreign visitors generated over $2.7 billion in 2008, a 13.5 percent increase over 2007.

Public opinion polls in the U.S. indicated that two-thirds of travelers, including 68 percent of Cuban-Americans favor an end to all restrictions on travel to Cuba.

American Travel Restrictions to Cuba
The Travel Restriction Reform and Export Enhancement Act, which prohibits the U.S. president from regulating travel to and from Cuba and liberalizes agricultural trade, could be brought to a vote in the House of Representatives as early as this July.

If the bill passes the House, it will be attached to a Senate appropriations bill and, if approved, would go to President Obama, who already has said he would sign it into law. This would open travel to Cuba for all U.S. citizens starting in 2011.

Many tourist that visit Cuba go to the Fabulous Cuban beaches, lush organic farms, humble yet efficient schools, reforestation projects, aging hospitals, preserved historic forts and old Havana complete with a wide variety of restored classic automobiles. The relative scarcity of automobile internal combustion engines offered clear vistas and easier breathing. Cuba’s per capita CO² output is one-tenth that of all Americans living in the United States.

Hotel Nacional de Cuba
The Grand Dame of Cuban Hotels is the infamous Hotel Nacional de Cuba, a five-star hotel built in 1930 by the Cuban Mafia of those days like Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Segal, Myron Lansky, Capone and Teferante.

“There’s a growing sense in the business community that if we’re going to trade with North Korea, Vietnam, Russia and some countries in the Middle East, why aren’t Americans trading with Cuba?” said Thomas J. Donahue, president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (back in 2001) “People are asking fundamental questions about a policy that’s clearly illogical”.

A new Cuba Research Report entitled “Cuba at the Crossroads The Role of the U.S. Hospitality Industry in Cuba Tourism Initiatives” stated in 2007,

“The process of rapprochement can only start with the lifting of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. To that end, we encourage U.S. hospitality business interests of all types to urge the executive branch and Congress to eliminate the embargo, which has arguably outlived its original purpose… We see a historic opportunity for profitable investment in a “new Cuba”… we contend that now is the time to advance prescriptive, forward-thinking insight designed to shift the thinking of the U.S. business community about Cuba and, in so doing, shift the thinking of the Cuban government, businesses, and people about their neighbors to the worth.”

The time to open up Cuba to American Tourism & investment is finally upon us.

Invest in Cuba

CUBA OPENS REAL ESTATE INVESTMENT IN TOURISM

BUY REAL ESTATE IN CUBA

HAVANA, CUBA. The Cuban Government has officially approved construction of residential projects for foreigners to purchase that are linked to Cuban Beach & Golf resorts, the tourism minister said Tuesday, possibly opening the door for villas that could one day ring oceanfront golf courses and other vacation getaways.

Manuel Marrero said the communist-governed island is on pace for its third straight record year of foreign visitors, and it hopes to continue expanding into the little-tapped golf market.

He said the government has green-lighted “real estate for tourist purposes,” without giving details. But the move may mean Cuba will allow tourist developments that include long-term residences—not just hotels catering to short-term visitors that now line the island’s beaches.

Investment firms in Canada and Europe have proposed building golf courses coupled with luxury housing under long-term leases with Cuba’s government. Endorsing residential zoning for tourism could be a first, albeit small, step toward making those projects a reality.

The decision would allow Cuba’s “entrance into new segments and the realization of investments in areas with tourism potential that have yet to be exploited,” Marrero said.

The island has only one 18-hole golf course and hopes to build 10 more, but has yet to break ground on any projects financed by foreigners.

Cuba has tried before to balance its drive for an egalitarian society with an appeal to foreigners seeking to own a piece of paradise. Scrambling for revenue in the late 1990s, the government authorized private foreign ownership of posh apartments in Havana and even signed a $250 million deal for beachfront apartments and timeshares with a Canadian company.

Many of those project stalled, however, failing to draw enough foreign investment. Meanwhile, some overseas businessmen bought Havana apartments but allowed Cuban girlfriends to live in them—violating rules barring islanders from doing so, said John Kavulich, senior policy adviser at the U.S.-Cuba Economic Trade Council in New York.

Cuba eventually bought out most of the residences it had hoped would be owned by foreigners.

Kavulich said Marrero’s announcement “is not new, it’s renewed.”

“Part of the caution would be we’ve seen this before,” he said. “They’re bringing it back, that’s a good thing, but we need to see what happens.”

Addressing a tourism fair at Morro Castle, a Spanish fort built in 1859 that guards the sea entrance to Havana, Marrero also said Cuba may exceed 2.5 million foreign visitors in 2010.

More than 1.05 million foreigners had come as of the end of April, the most-successful four-month span since Cuba began promoting large-scale tourism after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of its billions in annual subsidies to the island.

“It’s been surprising because we began with January and February really bad—bad because of the financial crisis, because of many factors,” Marrero told reporters after his presentation. “But March and April have been very good.”

In 2009, Cuban tourism rose 3.5 percent, with more than 2.4 million tourists coming, mostly from Europe and Canada, despite the global recession. But many visitors stayed fewer days than usual, and tour operators offered steep discounts to keep them coming, meaning revenues slumped nearly 12 percent.

While the U.S. government doesn’t permit most of its citizens to travel to Cuba, the Obama administration has eased restrictions on Cuban-Americans visiting relatives here. But those who come for family travel are counted as Cubans, not foreign visitors.

Marrero said 50 percent more Cuban-Americans visited early this year than during the same period last year, but offered no statistics.

He said Cuba has 50,000 hotel rooms nationwide, many in establishments jointly operated by the government and private companies in Europe.

CALL CUBA NOW

CUBA TOURISM INVESTMENTS OPEN TO USA

Cuban Resort Investment Open to USA Investors

CUBA OPEN TO USA INVESTORS
HAVANA,CUBA - Cuba Investment opportunities are finally starting to open once again now that the US President Obahma Government has begun to open the door to the possibiity of American Investment in Cuba.
Cuba has definatly responded in a positive manner with a new Real estate and property law aimed at attracting foreign investment in tourist HOtel & Resort projects including marinas and luxury golf courses,
Cuban Resort Investments are welcome in all tourism sectors and from all investment countries including financing originating from the United States if Washington reverses its embargo on the island.

Cuban Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero stated the Cuban government has adopted "a new policy of real estate development linked to tourism" as part of the strategy to boost the Cuban Tourism economy. Cuban Tourist are one of the largest sources of hard cash for Cuba, which generates over two billion dollars annually from tourism in places like Havana, Varadero Trindad Cayo Coco & Cayo Largo.
Minister Marrerro, opening the Cuban international tourism fair by saying that Havana had gone ahead and approved a legal instrument to regulate these marinas, golf courses and other tourism investments.

CUBA BREAKS TOURISM RECORD
In 2009 Cuba broke its records of Tourist and received over 2.4 million tourist, and is enjoying more revenue from foreign tourist since the collapse of the Soviet Union, which gave assistance to Cuba's Castro govenment.

Unfortunately Americans were not allowed to spend thier American money in Cuba under this powerful economic embargo in place under American President Kennedy becasue of the Bay of Pigs since 1961.
Cuban Toursim authorities like to develop eco tourism centers and increase medical tourism with the immediate focus on Cuban golf resorts which have been invisible tothe people of Cuba since the 1959 revolution.
Cuban Minister Marrero met this spring with American business presidents & CEO's in regards to American investment as soon as the embargo is lifted. Cuba said American tourism could be "Very important" for Cuba following any positive change in the American embargo. In a sign of good faith US President Barack Obama has already lifted all travel and money transfer restrictions on Cuban-Americans with relatives in Cuba.
The next step is to lift the travel ban for americans to visit Cuba.
The Cuba investment flood gates will soon be open. The investors that take the risk now should be greatly rewarded with their Cuban Investments.
INVEST IN CUBA

CUBA CUBA

INVEST IN CUBA CUBA

Investment Opportunities in Cuba Today. Global Investors examined Cuba's economic situation with the idea of a day that will allow private investors in Cuba. These experienced global investors were business entrepranours, writers and reporters,that no longer wanted to talk about the Cuban embargo but were seeking the actual conditions nesecary to invest directlyin Cuba with the potential for reform teh major Cuban investment sectors led by Hotel Development, Real Estate, Contruction  infrastructure, and Internet telecommunications systems such as Google, You Tube, Twitter, Skype & FaceBook.

Opportunities- Today there are some major obstacles that hinder direct investment into Cuba.

Investors have said that Cuba is consistently ranked as the worst business environments in the world by various investors that ahve already been burned by the Cuban Investment landscape and government beacracy that seems to block growth and encourage internal fraud by Cuban officials.

Cuba also has the second highest debt in the world and is routenily blocked out of the international capital markets that are currently controld by the American Financial institutions.  The fragile Cuban economy is very dependent on the global tourism Markets and to exports to a small number of international partners. 

Investors also face huge chalanges placed by the Cuban government that  include at least a 50 Cuban government ownership in all Joint Ventures, plus the foreign partner ahs to put up 100% of the capital & Financing. The foreign investors must hire workers through the Cuban Employment agency with a dual-currency system that in effect charges the Foreing company 20 times the salary paid to the Cuban worker.

There is a natural built in lack of transparency in all Cuban investment procedures.  There is still no reliable news of the 1994 Mexican Domus investment in Etecsa one of the larger foreign private Cuban investments todate.

All this may change soon if Cuba had a regulatory legal framework that truly protected foreing investors.

Everyone agrees that major investment in Cuban telecommunication sector would be very profitable to foriegn investors if Cuba has the lowest rate of cell phone users in the world.  Experienced investors pointd out that Cuban regulations aren’t the only problems to eventual American investment since the American embargo severely damages the economy and services that U.S. company do currently provide to Cuba.

Despite all this American Companies sold over $1 Billion dolalrs of American made goods to Cuba in 2009 despite the Obama Administration’s commitment to expand economic and political ties between the U.S. and Cuba.

Conclusion: The economy was tough for Cuba in 2009 however Cuba is gradually beginning to change its old stlye system into a newer and freer market by allowing more small businesses entrepreneurial in the tourism and agricultural area. World wide investmetn funds are awaiting the day that they can begin to sell investmetns in the main Cuban sectors of the economy to enhance foreign direct investment.  The top investments will be in Cuban hotels, tourism, food production, sugar products and real estate property development that could have positive repercussions for foreign real estate investors. Investors & Politicians agree that Cuban health, education, and military areas are presently excluded

 from all foreign investment yet the impressive Cuban healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors could offer ample opportunities for foreign Investment such as York Biosciences.(YM:TSE),

Final point was made by all investors that no matter what happened Cuba remains one of the best places in the world to invest in new projects due  the its location to the USA.

CUBAN INVESTMENTS

GOOGLE COMING TO CUBA ?

GOOGLE CUBA?

Rule changes by President Obama Administration will pave the road for leading Global American companies to enter Cuba. The  changes in amendments released by USA Treasury permit exporting of all social networking sites like Face book, chat and e-mail software like GTalk to Embargo countries like Iran, Sudan and Cuba. Investors feel that the Cuban economy will benefit the most due to the high level of education in Cuban population.
USA Treasury Department adjusted the trade sanctions against Iran, Sudan and Cuba to allow the export of leading edge social media and other Web-related technologies that could assist and bridge the work of world wide human rights bloggers especially in Cuba.
Present blockade restrictions don't allow companies to selling their technology and other goods to populations located in sanctioned countries.  U.S. Investors believe Web-based technologies such msm messaging, skype, chat and blogging software like Google's Blogger, could open a new opportunity for human rights activists in those poor countries to work with the help of other activists all over the globe.

US Treasury changes were implemented to ensure that individuals in sanctioned countries can “express their universal human rights to free speech & provide shared information to the greatest number of people ” according to an announcement from the united States Treasury.

The Obama administration has a deep commitment to the universal human rights of all the world's people the issuance of these open licenses will allow easier communications between families & freinds in Iran, Sudan and Cuba to use the Internet to communicate with each other and with the outside world according to US. Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin.

Recent videos from Cuba have proven that personal Internet-based communications such as Gmail, GTalk messaging and Blogger social networking sites are powerful applications. Proof of this is the growing fame of Cuban Human Rights Blogger Celia Sanchez of GererationY.

FIDEL CASTRO AND GOOGLE
United States Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control released the amendments to the Cuban Assets Control Regulations thus paving the way for American companies like Google to now enter Cuba. Fidel Castro and his brother Raul Castro have both welcomed the news as it is another small step in the right direction to mending Cuban-USA relations. Fidel even joked that he and Raul keep texting each other in between meetings.

New permissions now authorize exports originating from inside the United States to people of Cuba for software related to the collection sharing & distribution of personal messages and information over the Internet, including website surfing, setting up blogs, e-mail programs, text messaging, real time chat and social networking sites according to the united states Treasury. The new laws released today also allow  specific licenses to be issued on a case-by-case approval for the export of all social media technology used to exchange and distribute information over the Internet that was not previously protected  by the Cuban general licenses.

The current US Treasury sanction regulations against Cuba were also adjusted to allow similar approvals  for the export of website services to Cuba. The export of goods and high tech technology, including software applications to Cuba is separately licensed under the United States e-Commerce Department, according to U.S.Treasury.
Google Executives are pleased with the news that the US government is supporting people to people initiatives that involve Human inter personal exchanges. This is a start in the right direction with the hope of improved relations between the two countries it may be possible to see a Google Campus in Havana some day soon.

CUBAN INVESTMENTS