Good prospects for Canadian companies in Cuba, says Cuban trade minister, as expert urges Canada to step up investment

With increased focus on foreign investment opportunities in Cuba, the Cuban foreign trade and investment minister was in Canada last week to promote new ventures, but a former Canadian ambassador to Cuba says Canadian companies haven’t yet taken full advantage of new opportunities.

Canada and Cuba have more than $1-billion worth of annual trade, and about 1.2 million Canadians visit the Caribbean island every year.

“I believe that Canadian companies have a natural market to work [in Cuba], a traditional market for many years, and we believe that the prospects are very good,” Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz told The Hill Times in an interview at the Cuban ambassador’s residence in Ottawa’s Rockcliffe Park neighbourhood last week, shortly after he spoke to International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr (Winnipeg South Centre, Man.) over lunch.

Mr. Malmierca said Canada and Cuba’s relationship is “good” and has been “maintained.”

“There are very good relations in every sense, especially in the economic field,” he said. “We are growing trade, we are having more investment from Canadian companies in Cuba. So we believe we are in a very good moment.”

Mr. Malmierca has held his ministerial post since 2009, and overseen his country’s encouragement of more foreign capital investment. New policies for foreign capital were introduced in 2013, and a new legal framework for foreign investment was brought in the following year. Cuba has also created a special economic zone for development in Mariel.

More recently, Mr. Malmierca pointed to the launch of a series of new ventures for foreign capital. The portfolio has 525 projects, which involve almost $12-billion across all sectors of the Cuban economy.

He said since April 2014, Cuba has added more than $5.5-billion in direct foreign capital investment.

Mr. Malmierca said, Cuba’s economic development still remains threatened due to the American embargo against Cuba, which started in 1958 during the Fulgencio Batista regime when the U.S. barred the sale of arms to the country. In 1960, following the Cuban Revolution, the U.S. barred the sale of all goods to Cuba after a period of nationalization, except for essential food and medicine, and in 1962 the embargo was extended to be nearly all-encompassing.

Former U.S. president Barack Obama eased some restrictions, and re-established diplomatic relations with Cuba in 2016. He called the embargo against Cuba “outdated” and said it should be lifted. Within a month of the 2016 U.S. presidential election that saw Donald Trump elected, Mr. Obama said his goal was to make the opening in the U.S.-Cuba relationship “irreversible.”

But Mr. Trump enacted harsher rules making it more difficult for American companies to work in Cuba, and for Americans to travel to Cuba.

“[The] blockade is the biggest obstacle for the economic development of Cuba,” Mr. Malmierca said, “and it is an obstacle for the Canadian … companies that want to invest in Cuba,” suggesting that Canadian companies are concerned over investing in Cuba due to potential consequences in the United States.

Mr. Malmierca said he doesn’t link prospects for Canadian businesses in Cuba to the U.S.-Cuba relationship, adding that Canadian companies may have more opportunity in Cuba because there’s no American competition.