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11/02/09 - Associated Press - As economy sags, Cuba says it will spend at
least 32 pct less on US food in
'09

By: WILL WEISSERT

HAVANA — Cuban purchases of U.S. food will fall by at least a third this
year as the island slashes imports to stabilize an ever-weak economy further
hammered by the global economic crisis, a top trade official said Monday.

Igor Montero, head of the state import company Alimport, calculated that the
communist government would spend less than $590 million on American food in
2009 once banking, shipping and other transaction costs are included. That's
down at least 32 percent from last year's $870 million.

Montero blamed the economic crisis, but also took a swipe at Washington's
47-year-old trade embargo, even though it exempts food, arguing that America
should begin buying Cuban products and allowing its citizens to visit the
island as tourists.

"If we aren't given more possibility to generate revenue through Cuban
exports to the United States, or an exchange of visitors," Montero said,
"it's going to be very difficult to continue to reach the levels of trade
we've grown accustomed to."

He said 2009 will mark the first year American food imports to Cuba have not
increased since the U.S. Congress authorized direct sale of agricultural
products to this country in 2000.

Because of a dispute over financing, Cuba refused to import even a single
grain of rice until a hurricane caused food shortages in November 2001.
After that, the U.S. quickly became Cuba's top source of food and will
retain that title in 2009, despite falling sales.

Cuban officials have begun a campaign to increase domestic food production
as falling imports have squeezed product supplies at the country's farmers
and supermarkets. But so far, those efforts have led to little increased
output.

Last year Cuba spent a record of more than $710 million for U.S.
agricultural products of all kinds — a figure lower than the one Montero
gave because it does not include transaction costs — according to the New
York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. That was 61 percent more
than in 2007, the council reported.

The spike came as Cuba stockpiled food in the face of rising commodity
prices, a strategy that backfired when three hurricanes hit the island,
damaging many of the warehouses where perishable items were stored.

Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca said that foreign
imports as a whole were down 36 percent to about $10 billion so far this
year, and that about 80 percent of that was food.

Some 51 percent of imports come from the United States, he said, though
Cuba's top trading partner remains Venezuela, led by socialist ally Hugo
Chavez, followed by China, Russia, Spain and Brazil.

In a speech kicking off a foreign trade fair east of Havana on Monday,
Malmierca said "complex economic factors" have forced Cuba to delay payments
to many of its foreign suppliers. But he said that the island "is ready to
hold dialogues to fix that."

Thirty-five U.S. businesses, most of them food, agriculture or shipping
companies, brought about 200 representatives to Cuba for the fair. Among
those here were state agriculture officials from Maryland, Virginia and
Georgia, Montero said.

Terry Coleman, Georgia's deputy commission of agriculture, said the White
House should push to modify banking regulations so that Cuba can transfer
payments from its banks to American ones without having to go through
financial institutions in third countries.

"We are hoping and praying for a real approach to trade," he said. "Normal
trade is direct. You buy, you send the products to the ships and there's no
middle man."