Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Cuba and China to sign deals to boost nickel production on the island

This really interests me because of location. I wonder how great the Chinese influence is in Cuba?

-Am

Posted: 18 November 2004 0438 hrs

HAVANA : Agreements signed during next week's visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao should allow Cuba to double production of nickel from its current level of 75,000 tonnes a year, according to Cuban President Fidel Castro.

"These are big, big investments," Castro said in a four-hour televised address late Tuesday.

He said the Chinese investments would eventually mean that "nickel production, which is now of 75,000 to 76,000 tonnes (annually) -- will double."

He stressed that Cuba would retain 51 percent ownership of companies created with Chinese capital.

Castro said his Chinese counterpart would arrive in Cuba -- the only one-party, communist-ruled country in the Americas -- on Monday for a 48-hour visit.

Hu Jintao is currently in Argentina on a Latin American tour that already took him to Brazil and will continue in Chile, where he will attend a weekend summit of the Asia Pacific Economic Coperation countries.

- AFP


http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_asiapacific_business/view/117704/1/.html