HAVANA, Oct. 5  (Bloomberg)  HAVANA’s redevelopment is in progress. Near El Floridita, where Ernest Hemingway once knocked back daiquiris, the hulking Manzana de Gómez building is being transformed into a five-star hotel.

Stylish boutiques sell perfume and stereos. Inside an old warehouse is a microbrewery teeming with people drinking lager made in huge steel tanks imported from Austria.

What isn’t immediately apparent is that all of this — and anything else that stands to make money in Cuba — is run by a man little known outside the opaque circles of Cuba’s authoritarian regime.

He is chairman of the largest business empire in Cuba, a conglomerate that comprises at least 57 companies owned by the Revolutionary Armed Forces and operated under a rigid set of financial benchmarks developed over decades. It’s a decidedly capitalist element deeply embedded within socialist Cuba.

This is Luis Alberto Rodriguez. For the better part of three decades, Rodriguez has worked directly for now Cuban President Raúl Castro. He’s the gatekeeper for most foreign investors, requiring them to do business with his organisation if they wish to set up shop on the island.

IF AND when the US removes its half-century embargo on Cuba, it will be this man who decides which investors get the best deals.

Rodriguez doesn’t just count Castro as a longtime boss. He’s family. More than 20 years ago, Rodriguez, a stocky, square-jawed son of a general, married Deborah Castro, Raúl’s daughter.

Rodriguez’s life is veiled in secrecy. He’s rarely been photographed or quoted in the media. He and the other Cuban officials in this story declined multiple requests for comment.

In a country where capitalism was treated as a subversive enemy force for a half-century, Castro has been cautiously opening the island to private enterprise since he effectively succeeded his brother Fidel Castro as president of the country in 2006.

There are now 201 permitted types of private businesses (restaurants and bed and breakfasts are the biggest categories), employing a million people, or a fifth of the Cuban workforce, according to Omar Pérez, a professor at the University of Havana and a researcher at the influential Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy.

Castro has legalised the sale of homes and cars, scrapped travel restrictions, and allowed private farming and co-operative businesses. It’s now legal for Cubans to stay in hotels, and 2.6-million people own cellphones, up from close to zero a decade ago.

But Castro has kept the big-money industries in the hands of the state, and much of it is managed by his son-in-law.

Rodriguez’s Grupo de Administración Empresarial (Gaesa) runs firms that account for about half the business revenue in Cuba, says Peréz. Other economists say it may be closer to 80%.

Gaesa owns almost all of the retail chains in Cuba and 57 of the mainly foreign-run hotels from Havana to the country’s finest Caribbean beaches. It has restaurant and petrol station chains, rental car fleets and companies that import everything from cooking oil to telephone equipment.

Rodriguez is also in charge of Cuba’s most important base for global trade and foreign investment: a new container ship terminal and 465km² foreign trade zone in Mariel.

Cubans talk constantly about the changes they’ve seen. But for a majority of people, Castro’s reforms haven’t delivered that most basic thing: a living wage.

Monthly salaries average just 584 pesos, or about $24, government figures show. That’s what it costs to buy 2kg of chicken breasts, a couple of bags of rice and beans, and four rolls of toilet paper in one of Gaesa’s Panamericana supermarkets.

Families still receive food rations: 250g of chicken, 10 eggs, one pack of spaghetti, 500g of black beans and 250ml of cooking oil per person per month.

Since December 17, when Castro and US President Barack Obama announced plans to normalise US-Cuban relations, the country has been abuzz with talk of money.

Alcibiades Hidalgo, 70, who spent decades working in Cuban state media and government posts, is part of a network of Cuban defectors and self-described exiles in Miami engaged in a cottage industry of sorts — that of forecasting Castro’s next move.

In April 1981, Castro called Hidalgo into his sprawling office on the fourth floor of the headquarters of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He directed Hidalgo to join a handful of powerful advisers who, among other things, were going to overhaul the economy.

One of the most powerful advisers was Julio Casas, an accountant who fought under Castro’s command during the revolution. Castro put Casas to work building what would become Gaesa.

Casas’s top aide was Rodriguez, who would sit quietly in meetings with Castro, talking only when addressed, Hidalgo recalls.

Casas built Gaesa around wringing revenue from the military’s properties and assets. Soldiers planted crops at bases. Work brigades built tourist hotels. Military planes were refitted for domestic passenger flights for Gaesa’s ad hoc civilian airline, Aerogaviota.

As Casas started new businesses, he put Rodriguez in as manager.

“Luis Alberto was not very sophisticated,” says Hidalgo, who rose to become Castro’s chief of staff. “But he was an efficient manager who was cold and calculated in his pursuit of power.”

In 2002, Hidalgo fled Cuba at night in a speedboat after being sidelined and then blacklisted for almost a decade in one of the regime’s political purges.

WITH the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba lost its economic patron, and the country was plunged into a crushing four-year contraction known as the Special Period.

Cubans endured shortages of food and medicine. Jobs disappeared. The sugar industry, which had long supplied the Soviets at inflated prices, fell apart. In 1993, Cuba’s gross domestic product shrank 14.9%, according to the World Bank.

Fidel Castro responded with schemes to lure foreign money into Cuba. He legalised the possession of hard currency. He allowed people to start private businesses, including family restaurants.

Big change came to Gaesa as well. Its tourism arm, Grupo de Turismo Gaviota, cut deals with international chains, most notably Spain’s Meliá Hotels International and Iberostar Hotels & Resorts, to build and run hotels in Varadero, a 20km stretch of white, sandy beach two hours east of Havana by car.

By the late 1990s, the Castros had found their saviour in Hugo Chávez, who was elected president of Venezuela on promises to emulate Cuban-style socialism. He flooded Cuba with free oil — up to 115,000 barrels a day.

Cuba also cut lucrative deals with other leftist leaders, including Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, to send tens of thousands of medical doctors to work abroad. Under the terms of those deals, many of which are still in place, the Cuban government kept up to 90% of the doctors’ wages.

After Chávez died of cancer in March 2013, Venezuela slid into an economic crisis. The country slashed oil shipments to Cuba — some estimates say by a third or more. Cuba once again needed cash.

“Raúl Castro has to open Cuba up to the world, to the capitalist, free-market world. He has no choice,” says Emilio Morales, a former marketing executive at Cimex, a big conglomerate later folded into Gaesa. Morales, too, now lives in Miami, where he runs the Havana Consulting Group.

According to his research, people made 650,000 trips to Cuba from the US last year, taking advantage of Obama’s and Castro’s relaxed travel restrictions.

“They brought $3.5bn of goods with them in their suitcases,” he says. And Cuban-Americans sent $3.1bn to relatives in Cuba. “It’s a huge impact.”

CUBA is a place both frozen in time and moving swiftly towards a future in which private enterprise will be a bigger part of life. Vast areas of Havana are little changed from 1959, when Fidel Castro’s bearded guerrilla fighters marched into town.

As for the fast-arriving future, there are Afro-Cuban jazz clubs, swanky private restaurants, and boutique hotels.

In April 2011, the Cuban Communist Party’s Sixth Congress approved 313 economic and social policy guidelines of the party and the revolution. By then, Castro had already moved Cuba’s most profitable state companies under Gaesa and Rodriguez.

More recently, Rodriguez was given the green light to take over Habaguanex, the state company that owns the best commercial properties in Old Havana, including 37 restaurants and 21 hotels.

Rodriguez rarely deals with clients, apparently preferring to delegate to the managers who run Gaesa’s collection of companies.

He seemed to be more hands-on in Mariel, where he was entrusted with building the $1bn megaport and surrounding free-trade zone. He regularly assembled his engineers for progress reports.

On January 27 last year, the port was ready, and dignitaries took their seats under a brilliant sun for the formal opening.

On the stage was Castro, Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, and Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff. The port, a collection of more than a dozen big cranes, a 700m-long pier designed to handle the world’s biggest container ships, a highway and a rail line to Havana, had been built by Brazilian construction company Odebrecht. It was financed at subsidised rates by Brazil’s state development bank.

Rousseff, smiling, walked up to the podium and started her speech with the customary naming of dignitaries in the crowd.

She thanked Castro and unnamed Cuban ministers, foreign executives and leaders.

And just before she leaned into her short address, she thanked one more person by name: Gaesa chairman Luis Alberto Rodriguez.

HAVANA, Oct. 2 ( NIA PORTER)  As she packs her bags full of feminine skirts, sexy suits, and sleek separates perfect for soaking up the local flavor, Naomi rang Kate. ‘Just get to Cuba,’ she said. ‘I’ll bring the clothes.'”

So reads a Harper’s Bazaar editorial from 1998. Naomi Campbell and Kate Moss are in their prime — household names at home in the UK and stateside. The two have reached supermodel stardom, muses for design doyens like Gianni Versace and the stars of breakthrough ad campaigns for Calvin Klein.

And now, Bazaar is photographing them in Cuba for a feature titled “Meet Me in Havana” with famed photographer Patrick Demarchelier. The 18-page spread hits stands that May. A year later, Bazaar is slapped with a $31,000 fine from the United States Treasury Department.

The problem here doesn’t lie with the two British supermodels or the renowned French fashion photographer, but with the American magazine that sent them to Cuba — a communist country rife with human rights issues, economic problems, and political adversaries, the United States being one of them.

When President Obama sat down with Cuban President Raúl Castro this April — the first meeting between US and Cuban leaders in over 50 years — New York Times fashion critic Vanessa Friedman predicted that as strained relations between the two countries improve, the fashion industry would be one of the first to take advantage of loosened restrictions on travel and trade.
Fast forward five months and Cuba has become the go-to destination for fashion magazine editorials, from Marie Claire to Net-a-Porter’s Porter Magazine.

Since the ’60s, the US and Cuba have had little to no political relationship save for brief interactions here and there, using Switzerland as a mediator. One of their biggest disputes? Trade. Well, trade, rumors of spies, and political back and forth that eventually culminated in several caustic situations, including an international scare known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Trade still seems to play a major role in this bitter relationship. When former Cuban President Fidel Castro implemented extensive taxes on American products and increased trade with the Soviets, the US pushed back, establishing trade restrictions with Cuba on everything except food and medical supplies — perhaps the reason why the island appears as if it is frozen in time, perennially stuck in the ’50s in terms of architecture, automobiles, and yes, even fashion.As it turns out, this is exactly what makes Cuba a prime location for American fashion magazines. That and its proximity: The island lies just 330 miles from American soil, yet the two countries couldn’t be farther apart in terms of economic development. One can almost hear an editorial director saying: “Those antiquated 1950s Chevys and Fords would look great next to this Balmain.”

According to Friedman, “fashion is tasked with channeling the zeitgeist.” In other words, even though Obama has cleared businesses for travel to Cuba, American fashion magazines aren’t heading there just because they can. They’re flocking to the country because they have to in order to remain relevant. In doing so, they run the risk of exoticizing Cuban people and culture — something fashion has gotten heat for in the past.Can fashion magazines capture Cuba’s allure without glossing over the years of hardship, without simply trading in on all that Cuba is for their own temporary gain? The task seems nearly impossible, but despite the issues that arise, magazines continue to travel to Cuba to shoot.

In Marie Claire’s September 2015 editorial titled “Havana Days,” Lithuanian model Giedre Dukauskaite poses in a $4,900 Gucci dress next to a plantain cart. In another image, she stands in stark contrast to Cuban natives, her evening gown and the lighting making the difference even more apparent.

W Magazine’s August 2015 editorial, “Viva Cuba,” features two of fashion’s leading models of Latin descent, Joan Smalls and Adriana Lima. They pose with Cubans and without, the focus mainly on the vibrant colors of their Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs ensembles.
Net-a-Porter’s Porter Magazine also took a trip to Cuba for its August 2015 issue. The resulting editorial, titled simply “Cuba,” attempts to link fashion with Cuba and its inhabitants in a photo essay involving a “charismatic cast list of compelling locals and passionate creatives.”

The luxury clothing highlighted in these fashion editorials is jarring when viewed in the context of Cuba’s current economic troubles.
We don’t know for certain if restored diplomatic ties will improve the island’s economy, but what we do know is that the fashion industry tends to stay relatively silent on issues like this, focusing instead on this season’s Cuban-inspired must-buys or travel guides with “insider” tips on hotels and art galleries.

There’s also no telling how long Cuba will remain a cutting-edge backdrop for fashion magazines. Chances are it will fade from the fashion spotlight as soon as domestic travel to the island is available to everyone.
Photo: W Magazine/Alasdair McLellan

HAVANA, Oct.1 (By Laura Bécquer Paseiro  (Progreso Semanal)  People say it’s easier to get to the moon than to buy a house in Cuba.
One might take this as mere hyperbole, but the truth is that the prices one comes across in the island’s real estate market are so high and the mechanisms to access this market so complex that it is probably easier to dream of life on Earth’s satellite than in one’s own place in the country.

The issue of housing in Cuba still needs to be seriously addressed and the real estate market is still in diapers. That said, like everything else in Cuba, there are different ways to materialize one’s dream of having a home, be it through legal mechanisms or “under the table,” where everything seems to move more quickly and smoothly.

“It cost me 8,000 CUC,” (around 9,000 USD) says Yanet, who has lived in Havana for 6 years, after leaving Cacocum, a town in Cuba’s east-laying province of Holguin. Her foreign boyfriend – whom she met on Facebook, or so she tells us – helped her pay for an apartment in Havana’s neighborhood of Cerro.

It has only one living area, where the bathroom, kitchen and bedroom are merged into one (she puts away the mattress when people come to visit). Though the place is small, she says she is happy. “It’s mine. It’s hard to own anything here,” she says while explaining that she bought it “empty, I had to bring and install all of this (household appliances and water installations). So, it cost me twice the property price, after all was said and done.”

Ismael’s parents are Cuban government officials and served as diplomats for four years. When they returned to Cuba, the official letter afforded some government employees, facilitating the purchase of a modern car valued at 30,000 CUC, was still in effect.
They decided to sell this letter and, with part of the money earned (some 14,000 dollars), bought Ismael an apartment near the neighborhood of Santos Suarez, in the municipality of Diez de Octubre. Like Yanet, Ismael had to spend a greater amount of money on home repairs.

“The process of buying or selling a home in Cuba is fairly bureaucratic,” 27-year-old Irina categorially says. At her young age, Irina already owns a home, something unusual in Cuba. She told Progreso Semanal that her mother worked in Venezuela as a medical doctor for more than 3 years. Her earnings there, the money made from the sale of a house in Marianao and some savings made it possible for her to buy a larger home in Luyano.

“The first thing you need to do is look for offers on Revolico [an online classifieds page], to have an idea of what the market looks like,” she explains. Prices oscillate between 25,000 and 60,000 CUC (28,000 to 68,000 USD), depending on the area you’re looking in and the characteristics of the property (the number of bedrooms, whether it has a large patio or not, whether it’s an apartment inside a building or a house, etc.) All of that has an impact on price, she tells us.

Keep in mind that the average salary for a professional working for the State is just over $20 CUC a month.

Once you’ve chosen the house or apartment you like and have met with the seller, you head over to the Housing Institute office in your municipality, for this entity to value your home in Cuban pesos. “My house was valued at 4,000 regular Cuban pesos (200 USD), but I bought it in Revolico at 12,000 CUC,” he tells us, unable to account for this disparity.
“The only thing they told me at the Housing Institute is that they were going to fix that “disparity” soon, because a lot of money was being lost.”

Then, you go to the Notary’s with the seller to transfer ownership of the property over to you. From there, you head on down to the bank to deposit the 4,000 Cuban pesos (or the sum the property is valued at). “You run into a wall when it’s time to pay a tax equivalent to 5 % the value of your house.

In my case, it was 200 Cuban pesos. You have to fill out a form with a lot of technical information at the National Tax Administration Bureau (ONAT), but they don’t even have a printed copy of it, and they won’t accept it unless you fill out all of that information. Around the corner from the office there are people who fill out those forms for 1 CUC or 25 Cuban pesos. You either pay or perish in a bureaucratic labyrinth,” Irina tells us.

Once you have that document, you go back to the bank and deposit the required sum. Then, you have to head over to the Real Estate Registry within a term of two months to register your home.

Price Disparities and Regulations
Who sets the prices of homes in Cuba? Of all the issues involved in buying a house or apartment, the price of these properties is the thorniest, as “run-of-the-mill” Cubans find it impossible to pay for one with their salaries alone and there are no bank mortgages available.

The prices in Cuba’s incipient real estate market are determined on the basis of location. A one-bedroom apartment in Miramar is far more expensive than a two-bedroom property in San Miguel Padron, given the area’s distance from downtown.

Another option for those seeking to buy or sell a property is Cuba’s official real estate portal. At Islasi, you can find a 447-square meter apartment (with five bedrooms and four bathrooms) at 341,000 CUC. You can also come across a ground floor, 508-meter square, three-bedroom apartment with two bathrooms in Alta Habana (municipality of Boyeros) at 130,000 CUC.

Offers include the province of Matanzas: a house in the city of Cardenas costs around 20,000 CUC.Unofficial Internet pages such as Revolico and Cubisima offer classified ads where one can purchase and sell products, including houses.

People like Yazel, who is tying to sell his home in Marianao, don’t understand such “disparities.” “What market should he go by, the informal one? How can one determine the value of a home?” he wonders.

The problem is that government authorities value properties in regular Cuban pesos but all sales are effected in hard currency and at abysmally different prices. According to the law, the referential value is multiplied by 4 at provincial capitals and 1.5 in other municipalities.

This is a new process as, after years of restrictions applied to almost everything having to do with housing, the “prohibition” was finally lifted at the beginning of 2012. The norms, published in Cuba’s Official Gazette No. 35 (on November 2, 2011) specify that “one of the requirements is registering the property in the Real Estate Registry.”

The new legal norms eliminated prohibitions and established mechanisms for the sale and purchase of homes, donations and exchange of properties. They also established other mechanisms for the granting of home building and repair subsidies to low-income people and those affected by hurricanes and natural disasters, as well as the granting of credit to aid in construction efforts.

At the time, the aim was to “eliminate prohibitions, make procedures related to the transfer of properties more flexibile and aid in the voluntary re-arrangement of living conditions by property owners.”

This process led to a dramatic increase in the sale and purchase of homes and repair and construction efforts. However, the country’s housing deficit has not been overcome, particularly in cities such as Havana and Santiago de Cuba, where one out of five Cubans resides.

Understanding the “disparities” caught sight of in Cuba’s real estate market is a difficult task. Years will be needed to untangle this mess and for other issues to become cleared up, so that owning a home ceases to be a mere dream.

http://www.havanatimes.org/p=114210&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+havanatimes%2Fapge+%28Havana+Times+Posts%29

President Barack Obama talks with Cuban President Raul Castro before a bilateral meeting, Tuesday, Sept. 29, 2015, at the United Nations headquarters. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

HAVANA, Oct. 1 (EFE) Raúl Castro asked U.S. President Barack Obama to use his executive power to ease the economic embargo on the island if he wants to continue making progress in normalizing relations.

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez related the Cuban leader’s comment after the two presidents met at United Nations headquarters Tuesday.

“The pace of the process toward normalization of relations between Cuba and the United States will depend on the lifting of the blockade,” Rodríguez said, adding that the executive decisions taken by Obama up to now “have a very limited value, a very limited scope.”

The U.S. president has executive powers that “are very broad, and they deal with tens of areas,” and they permit him to substantially modify many elements of the embargo, the foreign minister said.

According to Rodríguez, Obama’s actions in that regard have not yet made any significant change in the embargo of Cuba.

Since the announcement last December of a process to normalize bilateral relations, Obama has suggested without success that the Republican-controlled Congress begin discussions about eliminating the economic embargo imposed on Cuba in 1962.

Castro, in his speech this Monday before the U.N. General Assembly, made it clear that the normalizing of ties will only be achieved, among other things, “with the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade” against Cuba.

In Tuesday’s meeting, the second that the two presidents have held since the normalization process got underway, the Cuban leader repeated Havana’s “willingness to work to build a new kind of relation between the two countries.”

The meeting, the foreign minister said, was held in a “respectful and constructive climate” and served to exchange impressions about Pope Francis’s visit to the two countries, cooperation in mutually beneficial areas and dealing with problems that are still pending.

Rodríguez recalled that the two countries now have an ongoing dialogue on numerous matters such as the environment, the war on drugs, search and rescue operations for people lost at sea, terrorism and health.

Cuba also said it is ready to discuss the process of economic reparations to resolve the demands that the two countries are making against each other.

The foreign minister said, however, that Washington and Havana continue having major differences.

Among other things, Rodríguez recalled that his government considers the return of the territory occupied by the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo to be a high-priority element in the normalization process.

But at the same time, he said there remains “an opportunity of making significant advances in the normalization of bilateral relations during Obama’s administration.”

Rodríguez recalled that Castro considers Obama an “honest man” and that he admires “his humble origins” and said that the meetings between the two have always been “cordial.”

The race for Cuba’s beach-front is on.

HAVANA, Sept. 30 (Reuters) Executives from major U.S. hotel chains have stepped up their interest in the Communist island in recent months, holding informal talks with Cuban officials as Washington loosens restrictions on U.S. firms operating there.

Executives from Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and Carlson Hospitality Group, which runs the Radisson chain, are among those who have held talks with Cuban officials in recent months, they told Reuters.

“We’re all very interested.” said Ted Middleton, Hilton’s senior vice president of development in Latin America. “When legally we’re allowed to do so we all want to be at the start-line ready to go.”

The United States and Cuba restored diplomatic relations in July after decades of hostility. Washington chipped away further at the half-century-old trade embargo this month, allowing certain companies to establish subsidiaries or joint ventures in Cuba as well as open offices, stores and warehouses in Cuba.

The United States wants to strike a deal that lets U.S. airlines schedule Cuba flights as soon as possible, a State Department official said last week, amid speculation that a U.S. ban on its tourists visiting Cuba could be eased.

U.S. hoteliers are not currently allowed to invest in Cuba, and the Caribbean island officially remains off-limits for U.S. tourists unless they meet special criteria such as being Cuban-Americans or join special cultural or educational tours.

Foreign companies have to partner with a Cuban entity to do business and U.S. hoteliers expect they will have to do likewise if and when U.S. restrictions are lifted.

While they wait for the politicians to iron out their differences, U.S. hotel bosses are conducting fact-finding missions in Havana and holding getting-to-know-you meetings with government officials in Cuba and various European cities.

This week, Middleton, along with executives from Carlson and Wyndham Worldwide Corp., which runs the Ramada chain, are meeting with Cuba’s Deputy Tourism Minister Luis Miguel Diaz at an industry conference in the Peruvian capital, Lima.

In the 1950s Cuba was an exotic playground for U.S. celebrities such as Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardener, as well as ordinary tourists, who travel led there en masse on cheap flights and ships from Miami.

A recent relaxation of some of the restrictions on U.S. travelers has encouraged over 106,000 Americans to visit Cuba so far this year, more than the 91,254 who arrived in all of 2014, according to data compiled by tourism professor José Luís Perelló of the University of Havana.

Overall, tourist arrivals are up nearly 18 percent this year after a record 3 million visitors in 2014, making Cuba the second-most popular holiday destination in the Caribbean behind the much-smaller Dominican Republic.

U.S. hoteliers expect the number of U.S. visitors to balloon if all travel restrictions are axed.

“If and when the travel ban is lifted. We estimate there will be over 1.5 million U.S. travelers on a yearly basis,” said Laurent de Kousemaeker, chief development officer for the Caribbean & Latin American region for Marriott.

De Kousemaeker accompanied other Marriott executives, including chief executive Arne Sorensen, to Havana in July to meet with representatives of management companies and government officials.

HOSPITALITY THE BUZZ WORD
Even if sanctions were lifted soon, Cuba traditionally has been slow to approve foreign investment projects, making it unlikely that U.S. hotels would be popping up immediately.

Rivals from Canada and Europe have seized the opportunity, operating and investing in Cuban hotels and resorts, alongside Cuban government partners, for years.

Spanish hotel operator Meliá Hotels International SA, is aiming to have 15,000 rooms in Cuba by 2018. It currently has 13,000 rooms via 27 joint ventures.

London + Regional Properties Ltd, a U.K. hotel and real estate development firm, agreed a deal this summer for an 18-hole golf course, hotel and condominium project with state tourism enterprise, Palmares SA, which has a 51 percent stake in the project.

But even with government plans to add 4,000 new hotel rooms every year for the next 15, the island is not ready for a significant surge in tourism.

The island’s tourism infrastructure went into decline in the decades following the 1959 revolution. Five-star hotel rooms, good restaurants and cheap Internet access are all in short supply.

When and if they get a green light from both governments, executives said U.S. hotel chains will likely offer branding and management partnerships to Cuban government partners such as Palmares and Tourism Group Gaviota, the largest Cuban government tourism entity.

The ultimate goal would be to secure long-term leases on resort developments, which is how Cuban authorities have generally operated with foreign hotels.

But right now, U.S. hoteliers can’t even refer to tourism when they meet Cuban counterparts, let alone talk about actual deals. Instead the buzz word is “hospitality.”

Marriott’s de Kousemaeker likes to use an analogy from baseball, a sport loved both in Cuba and in the United States, to describe the situation.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/09/30/cuba-usa-hotels-idUSL5N11Y00K20150930

HAVANA, Sept. 29  (EFE) Cuba by 2050 will have the ninth-oldest population in the world, according to official projections released over the weekend, which also give the first hint that this trend toward aging will go hand in hand with a decline in the island’s labor force.

By that time, some 35 years from now, Cuba will have an estimated 3,598,782 inhabitants 60 years old or over – about 33.2 percent of the total population – according to calculations of the Population and Development Studies Center, or CEPDE, of the National Statistics and Information Office, or ONEI, cited in an article published in the official daily Juventud Rebelde.

Demography experts predict that the island’s population will continue to fluctuate by “more or less” stable degrees, with years when it increases alternating with years when it decreases, but “always very little,” until around 2025, when a “sustained” decline in the number of inhabitants is expected.

The article recalls that since 1978 Cuban child-bearing has fallen below the replacement level for each woman of reproductive age, while at the same time CEPDE specialists predict “slight” increases in the global fertility rate, from 1.71 children per woman at the end of 2015 to 1.96 halfway through this century.

They also believe that the introduction of new economic measures on the island are likely to stimulate child-bearing, so that by the year 2025 Cuba will have its most numerous population with 11,309,665 inhabitants compared with the 11,223,948 registered now.

But by 2050 that trend will have turned around once again and will have lost 3.6 percent of the current population, the study says.

Meanwhile, with the aging of the island’s population, one of the greatest concerns is the number of active people left in the labor force, which will decline in proportion to the number that will no longer be of an age or physically able to work, and will consequently stop contributing to the nation’s economy.

In that regard, at the end of this year the number of active Cubans is estimate to stand at 7.2 million between the ages of 15 and 59, but by 2040 the deficit of workers could be more than 815,000.

The government understands that the aging population is one of the main challenges facing the nation, and President Raul Castro himself has called for an “urgent” search to find solutions to the problems that stem from that trend, including changes in welfare services.

Home Depot in Havana? New U.S. rules allow the sale of construction material to Cubans

HAVANA, Sept. 20  ( Cubastandard)  Taking another significant sanctions-easing step, the Obama Administration now allows U.S. businesses to open offices, stores and warehouses in Cuba, hire Cubans, open bank accounts on the island, enter joint ventures with state telecom ETECSA, and lease their goods to Cuban consumers.

Cuba has not made any official statement yet, but if the process of selecting ferry providers is an indicator, the government will react at a slow but deliberate pace, making its own choices. Depending on the Cuban reaction, the easing measures have the potential of triggering a flow of millions of dollars in U.S. investments to Cuba.

Under the amended regulations, U.S. agricultural goods and medical exporters, telecom and Internet service providers, construction material suppliers, shipping and mail service providers, travel service providers, news media, universities, and religious organizations can now “establish and maintain a physical presence, such as an office, retail outlet, or warehouse, in Cuba.”

“These individuals and entities will also be authorized to employ Cuban nationals, open and maintain bank accounts in Cuba, and employ persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction in Cuba,” a joint statement by the U.S. Departments of Commerce and Treasury says.

This means that UPS or FedEx could open drop-off locations in Cuba, U.S. food and medical distributors could open warehouses or sales offices at the Mariel Special Development Zone, U.S. airlines could open ticket offices in Havana, Home Depot could sell its goods at a store, Verizon or Google would be able to offer devices, and John Deere or Caterpillar could have showrooms, says Kavulich.

The revised Cuban Assets Control Regulations (CACR) — administered by Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) — and to the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) — overseen by the Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) — will take effect Sept. 21, senior officials told reporters during a background briefing Sept. 18.

The same day, President Obama called President Raúl Castro by phone “to discuss the process of normalization between the two countries in advance of Pope Francis’s upcoming visits to Cuba and the United States”, a White House statement said.   The leaders also “discussed steps the United States and Cuba can take, together and individually, to advance bilateral cooperation, even as we will continue to have differences on important issues and will address those differences candidly,” the statement said.

Earlier this week, Obama urged business executives during a meeting in Washington to press Congress to lift the embargo, mentioning “significant economic opportunities.”

Telecom and Internet services

The new regulations expand the telecommunications and Internet general license to allow a physical presence in Cuba, such as “subsidiaries or joint ventures,” the press release said. In a background briefing session, a senior administration official told reporters that the joint venture clause was introduced because of the recognition that state company ETECSA is the only player in the Cuban telecom sector.

“Persons subject to U.S. jurisdiction will be allowed to establish a business presence in Cuba, including through joint ventures with Cuban entities, to provide certain telecommunications and internet-based services, as well as to enter into licensing agreements related to, and to market, such services,” the press release said. Under the changes, leasing or loaning of consumer communications devices to end-users is now also allowed.

The regulations also permit the import of Cuban-made mobile applications, and the hiring of Cubans to develop apps.

Third countries, vessels and aircraft, recreational boats, legal services and more

The new rules also allow U.S. businesses to:

•sell goods and services to Cuban nationals outside of Cuba, as long as it doesn’t involve exports to or from Cuba. Banks can now open accounts for Cuban nationals in third countries.

•take cargo ships, ferries, cruise ships and aircraft to Cuba under an application-free general license. Aircraft are allowed to remain in Cuba for up to seven days, vessels up to 14 days.

•travel on ships and boats that don’t stop in third countries under an application-free general license, including lodging aboard vessels.

•U.S. lawyers may now provide for-pay services to Cubans and entities in Cuba. However, there still are “certain limitations” on providing for-pay legal counseling to government or Communist Party entities. Also, U.S. citizens and businesses are now allowed to contract and pay Cuban lawyers.

Individuals can now:

•open bank accounts in Cuba, as long as they are authorized travelers.

•take recreational boats used in connection with authorized travel to Cuba under a general license.

•send unlimited remittances. With the idea of “empowering Cubans with opportunities for self-employment,” the U.S. government lifted all restrictions; currently up to $2,000 can be sent per quarter and person.

Finally, OFAC clarified that current sanctions in place “allow most transactions that are ordinarily incident and necessary to give effect to a licensed transaction. For example, certain payments made using online payment platforms are permitted for authorized transactions.”

https://www.cubastandard.com/?p=14042&utm_source=Sept.+27%2C+2015&utm_campaign=Sept.+28%2C+2015&utm_medium=email

HAVANA, Sept 27 (AFP) US President Barack Obama will hold talks with Cuban leader Raul Castro on Tuesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the White House said Sunday.

It will be the second meeting between the two leaders, after a first historic encounter in Panama in April.

Washington and Havana reestablished diplomatic relations in July after more than half a century of enmity.

The Cuban leader, who succeeded his brother Fidel in 2006, will make his first-ever address to the UN General Assembly on Monday, only several hours after Obama takes the podium.

In an address to a UN development summit on Saturday, Castro took aim at the US embargo against Cuba, describing it as the “main obstacle” to his country’s economic development.

“Such a policy is rejected by 188 United Nations member-states that demand its removal,” he said, referring to a UN resolution calling for the end of the decades-old embargo.

The 193-nation assembly has voted each year since 1982 to approve a resolution calling on the United States to lift the embargo against Cuba, which has been in place since 1960.

Castro hailed the re-establishment of relations with Washington as a “major progress,” but stressed that the embargo was unfinished business.

“The economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba persists, as it has been for half a century, bringing damages and hardships on the Cuban people,” said Castro.

Since the rapprochement with Cuba, the Obama administration has expressed support for lifting the embargo, but the decision rests with Congress, where a Republican majority opposes the move.

The General Assembly is set to discuss a new draft resolution condemning the embargo at a session next month.

HAVANA, Sept. 26  Cuba, known for its smoking cigars, has a large problem with lung cancer, it being the fourth-leading cause of death in the country. Since 2011, however, Cuba has made a vaccine that could prevent the disease available to the public for free.

Reviews of the impact of the injection in Cuba and Europe are in the beginning stages, but early evidence has shown success, Dr. Kelvin Lee, co-leader of the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, told The Huffington Post.

It is a treatment for lung cancer, not a cure. The same method has shown to work in treating colon cancer and gives hope that it will also be able to treat other cancers.

Here are some facts about the shot, according to The Huffington Post, ABC News and USA Today.

1. The vaccination is known as CimaVax. It is approved for use in Cuba and Peru.

2. CimaVax increased tumor-reducing antibody production in half of its cases.

3. The vaccine works best for younger people, having an increased effectiveness in those younger than 60.

4. So far, 5,000 individuals have been given the injection.

5. The preventative measure is affordable – Cuba pays one dollar for each shot.

6. No significant side effects have been found as of yet.

7. Researchers in the United States have been looking to create similar vaccinations for lung cancer known as GVAX and BLP 25, but not as many studies have been performed on them.

8. ClimaVax creates a protein that spurs the immune system to attack a lung cancer-growing hormone, preventing the tumor from enlarging,according to ABC News.

9. Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, New York, has an agreement with Cuba’s Center for Molecular Immunology to conduct clinical trials of ClimaVax in the United States.

10. In Cuba, family physicians are able to administer the vaccination.

11. With innovations such as this, many have come to question if the U.S. embargo has hurt medical research, according to USA Today.

http://www.newsmax.com/FastFeatures/lung-cancer-vaccine-Cuba/2015/09/25/id/693269/

HAVANA, Sep 26  (PL) Colombian airline Aviatur and its cargo department Avia Express opened here a parcel service that will be provided by the company to various airports in Cuba with the collaboration of the company Aerovaradero.

The parcel service, in which the Cuban airline Cubana de Aviacion will also participate with its cargo offers, was launched at the headquarters of the Embassy of Cuba in Bogota, and the ceremony was attended by various personalities from the aviation and tourism sector. The ceremony was chaired by Aviatur president Jean Claude Bessudo and Cuban Ambassador Ivan Mora, while it was attended by Senator Ivan Cepeda and Pierre-Yves Calloc’h, manager in Colombia of the French brand Pernod Ricard, distributor of the Havana Club rum.

According to the information provided by the directors of Aviatur and representatives of Cubana de Aviacion in Colombia, the parcel service will cover airports in the provinces of Havana, Matanzas (Varadero), Camaguey, Holguin and Santiago de Cuba.

HAVANA, Sept. 23  (FT) “Would the ‘real’ brand please stand up?” That is a complicated question at the best of times. But when the brand is Cuban, it gets more complex still.

Cuba produced the most charismatic revolution of the 20th century. But, with the socialist island slowly re-embracing capitalism and seeking rapprochement with its arch-enemy, the US, the “real Cuba” is in a state of transition.

That transition, in turn, sets the stage for one of the most colourful marketing clashes of modern times, the battle for the “soul” of true Cuban rum, a contest that pits Bacardi, the Bermuda-based company, against Pernod Ricard, the French distiller.

Battle lines: Bacardi and Havana Club are fighting for the ‘soul’ of true Cuban rum

Both drinks groups claim to purvey the “real” thing. But both, perforce, have taken different routes to buttress that claim.

Bacardi, which has its roots in 19th century Cuba and is owned by an exiled family, extols its heritage and Cuba’s pre-revolutionary days.

“Bacardi — untameable since 1862” runs the company slogan, a true enough comment. Bacardi was Cuba’s best-selling rum before the 1959 revolution and, in exile, has become the world’s largest privately owned drinks company.

“Nobody markets the revolution any more,” says Enrique Fernandez, a cultural critic and author of a forthcoming book on Cuban food, The cortadito: my journey through Cuba’s mutilated but resilient cuisine. He says: “Cuba’s marketing pull lies more in old music, old Havana and its old ways. Its charm is in nostalgia — so Bacardi probably has the upper hand there.”

Pernod Ricard, by contrast, is a relative newcomer. For two decades, it has produced Havana Club rum with its joint venture partner, state-owned Cuba Ron, and sold it around the world, except in the US. It calls Havana Club “the genuine, iconic Cuban rum”.

“The brand is an icon,” says Jérôme Cottin-Bizonne, chief executive of Pernod’s Havana Club. “It is an expression of Cuban culture.”

That is half true. Before the revolution, Havana Club was only a minor brand. But as it is now actually produced in Cuba, while Bacardi’s rums are largely produced in Puerto Rico, the claim to authenticity is credible.

“In our experience, consumers are attracted to authentic brands,” says Charlie Rudd, chief operating officer of BBH London, the advertising and creative agency. “That is why advertisers invest time and energy to demonstrate where they came from and what makes them special. With this in mind, it looks as though Pernod Ricard has a trump card.”

But what is Cuban culture — given that some 2m Cubans live outside the island — which has a population of 11m?

Bacardi’s campaign locates it in the eternal Cuba of yesteryear. Pernod, on the other hand, leans towards today’s post-ideological Cuba.

To project that image, as well as its rum, Pernod has invested in promoting Cuban music. It has made stylish CDs produced by jazz maestro Gilles Peterson and co-financed a feature film, scripted by Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura, called Seven Days in Havana, an often poignant series of contemporary vignettes, only some of which have the feel of an advert.

“The old Cuba of vintage cars has its charm,” says Mr Cottin-Bizonne. “But in the film we wanted to look to the future.”

Cuba’s marketing pull lies more in old music, old Havana and its old ways
– Enrique Fernandez, cultural critic and author

A further complication lies in the companies’ battle over the “Havana Club” marque — which Pernod owns, except in the US, where Bacardi has the rights. The contest will surely escalate should the US embargo finally end, and Pernod can then sell its “Havana Club” in the US, in competition with Bacardi rum and its own “Havana Club”.

The brand battle for “authenticity” goes on, although there is no correct final answer — just as there is no “real Scotch” — and in the end it boils down to questions of personal taste and market access.

Still, the clash is a measure of changing times. A revolution that once won international followers with its global image has now partly resolved down to the rival marketing strategies of two very capitalist companies.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/923842d6-5c4c-11e5-a28b-50226830d644.html#axzz3maaoKMxH