GOLF IN CUBA

Image via WikipediaCUBA GOLF


With an easing of the Castro regime's draconian policies on any activity viewed as bourgeois and an increasing thirst for tourist dollars, the Republic of Cuba is in the process of welcoming back golf.

At one time the most populous - now with 11 million residents - Caribbean island nation boasted a dozen or more golf courses. But when Fidel Castro took power in 1959, all but 27 holes were usurped for uses other than the playing of the Royal & Ancient Game.

But that may be changing, thanks to foreign investment in several golf-related developments. "Golf is becoming a reality in Cuba this year," Andrew MacDonald, chief executive of London-based Esencia Hotels and Resorts, told CNN (for the full report, visit http://www.cnn.com/2011/SPORT/golf/02/21/cuba.golf.revolution.castro/).

"The key moment was a change in Cuban property law last August to make foreign ownership far more attractive. The Cuban government has a vision of establishing 15-16 new golf courses in the next five to seven years."

According to reporter Will Tidey in the CNN report, MacDonald's firm is close to breaking ground on Carbonera Country Club, part of a $300 million project in a resort area called Varadero, which already has the 18-hole Varadero Golf Club (the other Cuban course is the rundown, nine-hole Havana Golf Club).

A Cuban investment group based in Vancouver, B.C., Leisure Canada, has three projects in the works in the Pinar del Rio province on Cuba's west coast, and a London firm called Foster and Partners told CNN it has been hired by a Spanish developer to build a 2,000-unit community with three courses in the same area.

Tourist minister Manuel Marrero confirmed that in 2010 the Council of Ministers approved 16 golf developments, saying that the sport was important to the country's plans to increase tourism.

Canadian golf architect Les Furber oversaw a $20 million expansion - financed by the Cuban government - of Varadero GC in 1998. He told Tidey that that project was made more arduous because of the American embargo which has been in place since 1962.

"Because of the U.S. embargo on products and services it was challenging to get many of the things we needed, and the economic time meant it took eight years to build the golf course due to the lack of diesel fuel, tires and batteries etc," Furber said.

Despite such difficulties, Furber is one member of the international golf community who believes Cuba has a bright future as a tourist destination, particularly for North Americans. "Cuba is 90 miles from Miami and has a great climate, coastal frontage for development and needs golf to support the tourism demands," he told Tidey.

"Cuba recognizes now that it does not have any financial support from foreign countries and needs tourism in a big way to help pay for its imports and lines of credit for most things it does not produce or manufacture," Furber added.

Though there are skeptics - Havana GC's pro Johan Vega told Tidey: "When the new ones open show them to me . . . then I will know it is true" - outsiders such as MacDonald express more confidence.

"Golf just wasn't a priority in Cuba before and now it is," MacDonald said. "We hope that in years to come emerging young players will have the chance to develop and compete on an international level. Cuba is known for its baseball players, and when you think about it the golf swing is not a million miles away from that used in baseball."

Also a factor in the spurt in Cuba's golf development is the introduction of golf as an Olympic sport for the 2016 games in Brazil. "It is important that support is given to many people in Cuba to play, practice and participate in golf," Spanish touring pro Alvaro Quiros said after a 2010 appearance at Varadero GC.

"Golf will be an Olympic event in 2016. Cuba should seriously look at and prepare for golf as they have done with other sports - baseball, boxing, track and field," added the long-hitting four-time winner on the European Tour.

While the embargo has severely limited travel by Americans to Cuba, 10 million U.S. citizens are allowed to visit the country because of their Cuban lineage.

But MacDonald sees that restriction changing, albeit gradually. "I see that coming in softly over the next few years," he told Tidey. 
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CUBA OPENS FOR BUSINESS AFTER 50 YEARS

Cubans Celebrate New Rules for Business in Cuba

 CUBANS OPEN BUSINESSES
CUBA- Cuban government has announced they are opening Cuba's closed communist economy to a new breed of Cuban private enterprise. Cuban entreprenours have been transforming their homes, apartmetns, cars and everything else they have into a new business opportunity
even in old run-down sections of Old Havana.All they want is to open thier own business and be their own masters.  It's not going to get rich, just to make only a little more than $12-a-month job at a state-run Cuban government institution.

Tens of thousands of Cubanos are chasing their entrepreneurial ambitions in Cuba's year of economic change, hopeful that a sweeping fiscal overhaul announced last year by President Raul Castro is for real. The Cuban leader said the country would lay off half a million state workers by March 31, while granting licenses for a broad, if slightly random, array of businesses. Cuba's new entrepreneurs face towering challenges in getting their enterprises off the ground, including high taxes, a lack of raw materials, an uncertain customer base, labyrinthine bureaucratic rules and limited access to startup capital. Yet, their success or failure will go a long way in determining the future of Cuba's revolution.

The Cuban state now employs 85% of the island's workers and controls 90 percent of the economy in one of the world's last bastions of Soviet-style communism. If the free-market experiment works, the cash-strapped government could shed millions of dollars from its payroll while boosting much-needed tax revenues and creating a new business and consumer class. It could also legalize part of a booming black market that provides everything from sausages to satellite television.

Image via WikipediaIf this Free market experiment fails, however, this suffering country will have turned hundreds of thousands of people out of their government jobs and into an uncertain future.  All of this in the same year that Raul Castro turns 80, and his older brother Fidel is widely expected to step down from his final official post as head of the Communist Party. So far over 80,000 Cubans have received new licenses, joining about 150,000 private sector workers left over from the island's last dabble with capitalism. Government economists say they hope a quarter of a million new entrepreneurs will eventually sign up.

Almost all the new businesses are small, operating out of homes or on street corners. But the stakes for Cuba couldn't be higher, with the economy weighed down by crippling disorganization, a broken infrastructure, endemic corruption and an enormous labor force that has become accustomed to getting paid very little — and doing very little in return.  Among the thousands who have taken the leap into private enterprise are Maria Regla Saldivar, a 52-year-old black belt in Taekwondo who plans to open a gymnasium in the ruins of a destroyed laundromat, and Javier Acosta, who has started an upscale restaurant catering to tourists. There is Danilo Perez, a 21-year-old accountant who has gotten a license to buy and sell bootleg DVDs in Havana's hardscrabble El Cerro neighborhood, and Anisia Cardenas, a seamstress with a license to make clothes.

Many others are giving manicures, painting homes, fixing cars and driving taxis — services on the list of 178 officially-sanctioned private activities. Some of the other opportunities are more obscure, such as fresh fruit peeling. And some are so specific they refer to just two people, like No. 159, which makes it legal to be part of the Amor Dance Duo. Even the Cuban government  warned that many of the businesses will fail within a year. And many Cubans say privately that they will wait and see if ventures such as Hidalgo's prosper before jumping into the fray themselves.

But for now, optimism and excitement are the mantra for cuba's new entrepreneurs. 
 CUBA CUBA SUPERSTORE

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CUBA INVENTS CANCER VACINE

Cuban Natural Medicines

Cuba Discovers Lung Cancer Vaccine

HAVANA CUBA- Cuba announced today that Cuban scientists are the first in the world to have developed a new Cancer vaccine to improve the lives of  patients with terminal lung cancer.  Although previous claims have been made before by several cancer research scientists in dealing with this type of Cancer claims that later proved unreliable.

Cuba has invited a U.N. mission to Cuba for Latin American physicians. The Cancer doctors were asked to evaluate Cuba's production of interferon, an anti-viral substance, and its applications. Cuba doctors demonstrated excellent technical level attained by Cuban scientists and the progress they had made in producing interferon.

Fidel Castro has showed considerable enthusiasm for Cuba's advances in public health projects. Cuban advances on a lung-cancer vaccine have been developing since the late 1980s, following visits by doctors from M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston to Havana, the Cuban government had chosen biotechnology as a priority area for development.

Lung cancer is the most common fatal cancer in both women and men throughout the world. It is estimated that lung cancer causes the deaths of more than 1 million people a year worldwide. According to statistics provided by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, approximately one of every 14 men and women in the U.S. will be diagnosed with lung cancer at some point in their lives.

Until now, treatment of lung cancer involved surgical removal of the cancer, chemotherapy or radiation therapy, as well as a combination of these procedures. The decision on which treatment to choose depends on the location and extent of the tumor as well as the overall health status of the patient.

Cuba's biotechnology industry plans to launch the vaccine, developed by Cuban scientists, in the international market in the near future.

CANCER IN CUBA

Dr. Gisela Gonzalez, head of the team that researched and developed the vaccine, cautions that it is not a miracle drug, although it provides relief in treating terminally ill patients, with fewer side effects than conventional treatments.

The vaccine, called CimaVax-EGF, consists of a protein, the Epidermal Growth Factor (EGF), linked to another protein that stimulates the patient's immune system to develop the desired immune response against EGFImage via Wikipedia

Normally, when EGF binds to a receptor on the cell membrane, it triggers the cell-proliferation mechanism, which increases in the case of tumors. Following administration of the vaccine, patients produce antibodies that recognize and specifically bind to EGF, stopping it from binding to a receptor and beginning cell proliferation. The consequence is a decrease in tumor growth, the extent of which varies according to the patient's individual response.

According to Dr. Gonzalez, this is the first vaccine against cancer to be registered anywhere in the world. CimaVax-EGF has already been patented in Cuba, Peru, Canada, Japan, South Africa and the United States, and there are plans to patent it in other countries. In addition, the vaccine has undergone several clinical trials in Cuba, Canada and the United Kingdom, and plans are under way to try it also in China and the U.S.

The vaccine is promising. If larger trials confirm the initial findings, an important milestone against lung cancer will be achieved.

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CUBA MAJOR REAL ESTATE REFORMS

Cuba Travel Guide

CUBAN'S  CAN BUY AND SELL PROPERTY
Havana. Cuban Communist Party leaders say Cuba will try to balance its budget, repay all its foreign debt, no longer support loosing state operated companies, and finally allow Cubans to buy and sell their private property according to a new blue print circulated in front of a major congress designed to save Cuba's cash-strapped island from total financial disaster.

The economic reform paper was given out to all the local Cuban party activists this week during a meeting by the new President of Cuba, Raul Castro, in which he announced that Cuba would hold a do or die Communist Party Congress in Havana next year. The economic document recommends abolishing the dual-currency system and seeking new ways for individuals to finally be able to buy and sell thier own private property without hassles. These proposals are not new, however having them discussed openely in public makes clear that the congress will be allowed to set a new economic direction for Cuba at least in terms of economic ideas.

CUBA CHANGES ECONOMY
The last meeting which last took place in 1997, has been traditionally used to announce major policy changes and its to be held at least every 5 years, but it has been delayed repeatedly as Cuba had to deal with health issues of Fidel Castrom and a serious financial crisis. There has been predictions that the future of former Cuban president Fidel Castro's role as the head of  the Cuban Communist Party chief might also be discussed at the congress. A Communist Party meeting also stated that will be held at some later point in the spring of 2011 however Cuban President Raul Castro made no mention of his brother, Fidel Castro, in his speech."The Sixth Party Congress will concentrate on a solution to our economic problems," stated Raul Castro on Cuban TV.

The economic report will outline areas for discussion that gives a accurate assessment of Cuba's current economic devastation, saying that Cuba now suffers from a terrible innefficiency and a lack of capacity in both production and infrastructure and a much older aging population. The report also states that Cuba has suffered a great deal due to a 2003 decision to attempt to centralize control over foreign currency, with layers of bureaucracy that make it almost impossible for state owned businesses to operate properly.

CUBAN ECONOMY
The Cuban economic paper is titled "Guideline Project for Economic Policy," and clearly states that inefficiency and incompetence have grown expotentially by neglect and a little bit of simple bad luck. From 1997 to 2009, Cuba lost $10 billion Dollars because of a drop in world prices of the products Cuba sells most including sugar, tobacco and nickel, combined with and a spike in the prices of products it is forced to import, such as oil and many basic foods. The same document states that Cuba, the island was hit by a record 16 hurricanes in that approximate period, causing another $20 billion in damage to the island. That $30 Billion dollar damage has been an enormous blow for a country with an annual gross domestic product thought to be about less than $40 billion . However the proposals makes it clear that there will be no change in Cuba's communist one-party, socialist political system.

Raul Castro stated in the Cuban newspapers "Socialism is still capable of overcoming the current difficulties and preserving the victories of the revolution,". This summit of the Cuban Communist Party congress came at a celebration of the 10th anniversary of an economic agreeemnt with Venezuela, which has become Cuba's most important benifactor by sending billions of dollars worth of oil to Cuba every year just to keep the Cuban economy afloat. Castro also stated that the meeting will make important decisions on how to modernize the Cuban economy and implement economic and social policy of the Cuban communist party and the revolution of Cuba.

CUBA AND VENEZUALA
The younger Cuban leader was together with Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who promised to continue supporting the Cuban people both economically and politically, as the two countries reaffirmed the pact for another decade.  President Chavez praised Cuba's Castro brothers for having the courage and vision to change the world. He stated "Raul's courage in modernizing socialism must be recognized," adding that his government would "join" the island going forward.

Since Raul Castro took over from his older ailing brother Fidel Castro in 2006 temporarily, then permanently, Raul has pursued a series of major economic reforms for Cuba. In the summer, Cuba announced it was laying off a 500 thousand government workers while opening up new sectors for private citizens to start  ther very own private businesses for the first time. Those layoffs will be completed by this spring , just ahead of the economic congress.


RAUL AND FIDEL CASTRO
Raul Castro also has begun to roll back the deep food subsidies, utilities and many other public services on which Cubans have depended upon for many decades. Former Cuban President Fidel Castro who just turned 84, still remains the leader of the Communist Party and is still referred to as Cuba's commander in chief.
After five years out of the public realm, the revolutionary leader bounced back on the political landscape this sumemr and now makes frequent appearances to discuss world affairs, particularly his fear that a nuclear confrontation between the United States, Israel and Iran is inevitable.

Since Fidel's health improved, many speculated Fidel would step aside from his top party position at the next party congress however Fidel has shown no sign that he is ready to step aside and leave Cuba in the hands of his younger brother. Cubans must now wait till the next Cuban congress to see how this effect the future of Cuba.


CALL CUBA TODAY

TRAVEL, LIVE AND INVEST IN CUBA

Live and Travel in Havana Cuba

 TRAVEL AND INVEST IN CUBA 
Over 50 years ago Cuba was blocked from the mainstream propaganda of the rest of the world while trying to create a prefect revolutionary dream island. The world has changed dramatically since then and Cuba has not.  Cuba is still living in that perfect time trap called the island of dreams. Now is the moment to travel to Cuba, Havana. Varadero and the rest of Cuba to explore this beautiful exciting country that has so much to offer.  Whether you are an international entrepreneur, or want to live a exciting peaceful life  while living part-time or full-time in Cuba, or maybe you are not interested in going through another long cold winter and prefer a mild tropical climate, Cuba is a realistic picture of living in a hot romantic Latin American country that teaches you to deal with the many challenges you will inevitably have to enjoy on your Cuban Vacation.

CUBA TRAVEL GUIDE
The Cuba Guide is perfect for anyone seeking a safe, affordable vacation place to travel to or even to live away from the United States and Canada. The Cuba investment guide teaches tourist the rules of Cuba & Havana investments, secret insider information and invaluable data about all aspects of living in exotic island of Cuba. You can learn Spanish, travel the Cuban beaches and even find companionship.  You can even start your own Cuban travel businesses. Cuba has the most population and is the biggest island in the Caribbean.
Havana City is Located only 90 miles from the U.S. mainland, Cuba - sometimes called the "Jewel of the Caribbean" for its natural beauty, boasts 100's of miles and miles of breathtaking terrain, towering mountains, amazing landscapes, hidden colonial towns and a couple of modern lost world cities.

HAVANA CUBA BEACHES
Cuba boasts over 400 unspoiled white sand beaches, panoramic bays and inlets surrounded by the beautiful crystal clear waters of the Caribbean sea have always been the island´s of Cuba's main attraction to both Tourist and Cuban investors. Cuba offers everything for every investors taste and lifestyle.   Cuba's "Varadero News" has predicted that Cuba would someday become the baby boomers´ retirement haven of the future predicting mass new migration of retired tourist and investors that will start to immigrate to Cuba, lured by the natural beauty and low cost of living to stretch their shrinking pensions, reasonable health costs and warm weather.  Cuba will be the hottest destination due to its proximity to the United States and the relative lack of propaganda.

CUBA INVESTMENT GUIDE
Cuba is perfect for the smartest entrepreneurs since foreign investment is now open and countless small enterprises are starting to grow in the Cuban cities.  Cuba's 11.5 million people are the largest potential natural market in the region.   Canadians and Europeans have been pouring money and investment into Cuba properties since new foreign investment laws have been relaxed in 2010.  The country´s new investment law allows foreign businessmen to own businesses, their offices and their housing.  Cuba has left the Cold War behind and is now ready to participate in the emerging global economy.  It is now time to get your foot in the door before the gold rush begins and hordes of entrepreneurs carve up the island completely.  A few of the reforms made to the Cuban economy in the last 10 years have created limited self-employment, legalized the use of U.S. dollars and encouraged foreign banking and investment.  Additional advantages for foreign investors include a highly-educated and well-disciplined labor force, tremendous opportunities in tourism´s untapped areas, and an improving infrastructure.

Conditions for investing and living in Cuba are getting better, yet no one can foresee the future with absolute clarity yet given the events of the last couple of years and the direction that Cubans are currently moving,
its safe that the predictions is that Cuba is on the verge of becoming one of the fastest growing economies in the world.  Cuba Investment Guide gives you the current realities of Cuban living and investing in the best places in Cuba, including Havana holidays, Varadero vacations, Cayo Coco, Cayo Largo, Santa Lucia, Saroa, Trinidad and the best beaches in all of Cuba.  The important questions are to find out what is required to become a legal resident?  Can I meet these requirements?  What is the cost?  How often does residency have to be renewed, what are the conditions of renewal and what is the cost?  What is required to visit, or while you are waiting for residency and What is the political situation?   What about income taxes, and other taxes such as sales tax, import duties, exit taxes and vehicle taxes?

CUBAN INVESTMENTS
Investors will need valuable information about rental property, purchasing property, telephone and Internet communications, Cuban travel and transportation, food, Restaurants, hobbies, Golf clubs, supplies and assistance.  In Cuba you will learn about the Cuban culture including the wild Cuban night life and entertainment, recreation.  Cuba is also famous for its low crime rate, detailed investment and banking system, sanitation and the rights of foreigners are all protected by the Cuban  government, Legal, Cuba  health care, Medical, and Financial professionals, and even Domestic assistance.  This is one of the best investments in Cuba available for everyone that is interested in studied and written about living and investing in Cuba for decades.

FRIENDLY CUBANS
The people of Cuba are warm, hospitable, fun-loving people famous for their keen sense of humor and
knowing how to enjoy life and getting together for singing and dancing.  Cuban friends will even take you into their homes to meet their families despite the poor relations with American government the average Cuban will treat Americans with courtesy and respect.

CANADIAN AND EUROPEAN TOURIST
Canadians, Europeans and others have been traveling in droves to Cuba for years to escape harsh winters.
 Cuba has around 325 days of warm sunshine each year.  The mild climate agrees with most people and Cuba´s longevity rate is higher than most developed countries. The healthy life-style is also due in part to Cuba´s world class doctors and extensive health care system.  Cuban doctors are very well trained and hospitals are good, and foreigners are guaranteed excellent Cuban health care treatments.  Cuba´s health care system is very good yet its easy to travel to America Canada or even Europe in case of emergency.
Non American Tourist and investors have been loving this exotic Cuban paradise for the last couple of decades. Now its your turn.  Come to Cuba to Travel or to start a new and exciting life and take advantage of all the wonders this beautiful country has to offer.  Investing in the new Cuba is the antidote you need to live your life the way you want it and to achieve your goals.  If you want to visit Cuba now is the time that you´ve been waiting for?

Call and book your Cuba Vacation now!   Travel to Cuba

To Contact Cuba  Call Cuba Now

Cuba Finally Opens To New Economic Reforms

Cuban Entrepreneurs Open For New Business
Cuban small businessman can now repair broken items on a street in Havana with the full support of the Cuban government. Cuba is launching a series of major economic reforms that will effect the livelihood of all Cubans, including approving a number of small business licensees. Cuba elite communist ministers mapped out a dramatic shift in the new arena of free enterprise in Cuba by approving a huge list of small businesses, allowing ordinary Cubans to hire employees and even promising financing to a new breed of entrepreneurs.

The reforms were printed in the most popular Cuban Newspaper in a three-page spread in the Communist Party-daily Granma which seemed to create a society of haves and have-nots in the island of Cuba that has spent half a century doing everything possible to create an equal utopia.

Last week's announcement that the government will lay off 1,000,000 employees by the end of March is equal to one-tenth of the entire country's workforce and the biggest change in Cuba's economic system since opening of the Cuban economy.

For the first time, Cubans in 98 private businesses will be allowed to hire people other than their relatives, and they will be able to sell their services to the state as private independent contractors.

Accountants in Cuba
Accountants, currently only permitted to work for the state, can set out on their own, keeping the books for these new businesses. Cubans who want to rent their homes to travellers will no longer have to live on the premises and can hire staff. Even islanders authorized to live overseas though apparently not exiles can take part in the economic changes by renting out the cars and homes they leave behind.

Cuba's Central Banking Minister is analyzing a variety of ways to grant small-business financing and  forgivable loans that are crucial to any growing free-market system but which would have been unimaginable in Cuba just a few short weeks ago.

The decision to open up and change the economic rules on private employment in Cuba's economy is one of the steps the country has taken in the redesign of its economic policies in order to cut expenses and increase production and efficiency. Cuba's top newspaper, Granma reported that Economy Minister Marino Murillo Jorge and a vice-minister of labour and social security would oversee the transition of the new cuban economy in the hopes of a brighter future for all Cubans.
FOREIGN INVESTORS IN CUBA
Foreign investors welcomed the news and its another step in the right direction for the Cuban investment climate. Cuban, European and even American investors are now studying the new laws to see where the best opportunities may be uncovered. Other investors sa that its best to get in now right out of the gate to ensure that your future profits are locked in. Either way its going to be a very interesting opportunity for Cubans as they get there first taste of Capitalism and to take hold of their own economic future for the first time in over 4 years.

GOLF INVESTMENT IN CUBA

Varadero Cuba Golf Course In Cuba

CUBA OPEN TO GOLF INVESTMENTS
Cuba is hoping to attract golf-playing tourists to Cuba with the hope of eventually even U.S. golfers. The government took big steps in that direction by allowing foreign investors that enjoy golfing and want to invest in Cuba to lease state lands for 99 years instead of the previous limit of 50 years.

The extension is expected to make Cuba a more attractive place for foreign developers, who already have detailed plans for at least four golf resorts with seven courses — including a $1 billion project.

Some foreign investors have been reluctant to commit to the projects because the 50-year limit was too short and risky, said Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer who researches Cuban real estate issues.

"I think most of them will be okay with the 99-year leases, although others have told me they will not do it" without full ownership rights, Zamora said.

The Official Gazette last week published Decree Law 273, signed by Raul Castro on July 19, allowing 99-year leases on properties for foreign investors though the government still owns the land. The previous limit set in 1987 was 50 years, though renewals were allowed.

Still unclear are many issues, such as the right to sell or inherit the properties built on the leased state lands.

The Cuban government owns the overwhelming majority of the land on the island, though some Cubans who owned small properties before the Castro revolution in 1959 have been allowed to keep them.

But the decision by Castro, who also has been allowing small but growing doses of private enterprise by Cubans, could give a quick boost to tourism development plans.

The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would lift the ban on tourism travel to Cuba, and the Obama administration is expected to allow a growing number of educational and cultural trips to the island.

Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero announced in August that the government had approved the creation of 16 golf resorts, ringed by thousands of condos and villas to be sold only to foreigners.

Cuba has only one 18-hole course and one nine-hole course, while the Dominican Republic has two dozen.

Foreign developers are already well along on proposals for four golf resorts on Cuba's north coast, including the estimated $1 billion La Altura mega-project in Bahia Honda west of Havana.

The project, proposed by British and Spanish developers, calls for three golf courses surrounded by about 3,000 housing units and a marina with 200 slips, according to documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

Another group is proposing two golf courses with about 2,000 housing units in the Guardalavaca beach area in Holguin province.

In the Varadero beach resort 100 miles east of Havana, British groups are proposing one development with a golf course and about 900 housing units.

The Bellomonte project on Guanabo beach, just east of Havana, calls for about 800 units ringing one golf course, plus a small marina.

Cuba recorded 2.4 million foreign tourists last year, a slight increase over 2008, although revenues have been falling as the euro and British pound lost value and a growing number of visiting Cuban exiles chose to stay with relatives.

The government first allowed foreigners to invest in an estimated 17 luxury condominium developments in Havana in 1995, but then-President Fidel Castro later halted the building program.

Many of the condo buildings were on or near Havana's Fifth Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Miramar, the capital's fanciest neighborhood before Castro seized power in 1959.

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."

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