Spain is the first country by number of joint ventures and economic associations incorporated in Cuba
Díaz-Canel, with a representative from the US Senate, on Thursday in Havana. On video, his speech at the ‘Mandela Peace Summit’, in New York. to be a small market (11 million inhabitants), Cuba was in 2017 the second country receiving Spanish exports in Latin America (900 million euros), second only to Mexico. After Venezuela and China, without competition due to their privileged political ties, Spain is the third supplier of products of the island. One out of every four foreign companies accredited before the Chamber of Commerce of Cuba is Spanish. Most are SMEs that export around one million euros annually, of which more than 200 are established in the country through commercial delegation, some 30 as joint ventures and another ten in the Special Zone of Mariel, according to data from the Spanish Institute of Foreign Trade. Regarding investments, although they are not large, Spain is also the first country by number of joint ventures and economic associations established on the island.
Not to mention the weight in the tourism sector, the main engine of the Cuban economy. Of the 70,000 rooms of its hotel floor, 45,000 are managed by foreign companies and, of these, around 70% are in the hands of a dozen Spanish chains. The absolute leader is the Mallorcan Meliá Hotels International, which with the opening at the end of the year of the hotel Paradisus Los Cayos, in Cayo Santa María, and the Meliá Internacional de Varadero, will close 2018, managing 14,600 rooms in the country. As important as the economic is the social. Since the Law of Historical Memory came into force, which opened the doors to Spanish grandchildren to acquire nationality, more than 100,000 Cubans have exercised this right. According to consular sources, when the process of processing the files ends, nearly 300,000 Cubans – 3% of the population of the country – will be full Spaniards.
When Lula da Silva ran out of his second and last term as president of Brazil, after almost a decade of historic prosperity, in 2010, he had the impressive approval of 90% of the population. More than one made the calculation: 2018 would be, according to the Constitution, the first year in which Lula could stand again for an election and regain power. When its successor, Dilma Rousseff, lost the presidency in 2016 in an impeachment, the economy was collapsing and institutions collapsed, corroded by corruption. The big parties and the markets did the calculation: 2018 would be the year of regaining power. And when an extravagant deputy, Jair Bolsonaro, saw that, after decades in the dark because of his extreme right-wing occurrences, all this chaos made him grow in the polls, he also made the calculation: 2018 would be the year of assaulting power.
