First Japanese Leader To Pay Official Visit To Cuba

World News Rudolph Rodriquez
http://stocknewsusa.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/First-Japanese-Leader-To-Pay-Official-Visit-To-Cuba.jpg

The Prime Minister of Japan, Shinzo Abe, has become the first Nippon leader to pay an official visit to Cuba this Thursday, according to the local media, informs the news agency DPA.

Abe met with the Cuban President Raul Castro, with whom he discussed economic and trade relations between the two countries.

‘Japanese companies are becoming increasingly interested in Cuba,’ said Abe, according to the Cuban Communist Party newspaper, Granma.

‘I think they can contribute in Cuba, which currently is improving its socio-economic model,’ added the Japanese Prime Minister.

Cuba began to gradually open to foreign trade and investments, but the national economy of the island remains firmly governed by the communist government.

Many governments and business delegations have visited Cuba to take the pulse of the situation in this country and seek opportunities for investment.

In the past 10 years, Raul Castro’s economic reforms have tried to focus the state intervention in strategic areas such as tourism, industry and scientific research, which allowed private businesses to bloom in a historic change.

Cuba is currently seeking for new economic partners, given that its main ally, Venezuela, is facing major economic and domestic issues.

In 2014, the United States and Cuba have announced the restoration of diplomatic relations, which were frozen for the past 50 years.

The Cuban economy has been hardly hit by the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Comecon, states with which it essentially made trade. Among the most recent issues there is the high price of oil, the recession markets of its main export products, sugar, and nickel, damage from hurricanes (Hurricane Charley made losses of around 1 billion dollars), the recession in tourism and the unsafe conditions in the economy world.

In late 2003 and early 2004, both tourism and the price of nickel had increase. Important factors in restoring the Cuban economy are the money sent by Americans of Cuban origins (representing approximately 3% of the country’s economy, by some estimates).