Cuba to Buy Farm Products

Feb 11th, 2003

State Group: Cuba to Buy Farm Products
Alabama government and business leaders visit Havana

From the Mobile Register

By Anita Snow, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - Cuba's food import company pledged to buy $10 million in agricultural products from Alabama in a move to revive historic trade ties with the Southern state, members of a delegation said Monday.

Alabama Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley said that Pedro Alvarez of Alimport asked the delegation over the weekend to work with Alabama producers in drawing up a list of farm products worth $10 million.

Negotiations on the deal will continue next month, when an Alabama farm delegation visits Havana, Baxley said.

Under an exception to long-standing U.S. trade sanctions against the communist-run island, producers of American farm products may now sell to Cuba on a cash-only basis.

"We are a state heavily involved in agriculture and forest products," Baxley said. "My hope is that through our involvement we can create additional markets for our producers."

Baxley was in a group of Alabama government and business leaders who arrived in Havana on a private jet Friday - the first direct flight from Mobile in 43 years. The flight took 97 minutes.

With an eye toward the eventual end of U.S. trade and travel restrictions on Cuba, the delegation also included David J. Cooper, president of Cooper/T. Smith Corp., a huge Alabama shipping firm.

Cooper said his father ran several steamship trips between the two countries in the years before the 1959 Cuban revolution, transporting lumber, grains - even passengers - from Mobile to Havana and sugar on the way back north.

"The potential is enormous" for future transportation services to Cuba after U.S. trade sanctions against the island are lifted, Cooper said. "Once relations are normalized, the maritime services here will be well served by partnering with firms such as ours."

Also in the delegation was Retirement Systems of Alabama chief David Bronner, who is researching whether the bankrupt US Airways should begin flights to the island.

RSA is a majority owner of US Airways and Bronner has said he would like to establish US Airways service into Cuba. US Airways lost $794 million in the final three months of 2002, but said its plan to emerge from bankruptcy by the end of March remains on track.

Mobile Mayor Michael C. Dow, who has visited Cuba numerous times in recent years through the Mobile-Havana Sister City program, said the two ports share a history of more than three centuries.

"We want the trade back, the ability to travel freely," said Dow. "We want Alabama to once again be a good friend of Cuba."