FIHAV 2011: Cuba, Panama Push for Further Trade Ties

FIHAV 2011: Cuba, Panama Push for Further Trade Ties

Cuba and Panama inked at the Havana International Fair a memorandum of understanding that will allow the two nations to boost their bilateral economic and commercial relations as it is meant to encourage the exchange of more specific products.

During the opening of the Panama Pavilion in Expocuba, Panamanian Ministry of Trade and Industry Ricardo Quijano, and Orlando Hernandez Guillen, Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, signed the memorandum of understanding for the enhancement of the Partial Outreach Agreement between the two governments.

The Panamanian high-ranking official said the agreement makes way for the two working teams to pass a number of new actions and the completion of other arrangements, provisions and items that will eventually facilitate a better and closer assessment of what goods and services must be exchanged and marketed.

Mr. Quijano also spelled out other vantage points within this document that takes the status of the former text signed in 2009 up a notch. In the same breath, the new agreement defines and shed more light on what products will be both imported and exported by the parties.

He also confirmed that negotiations with the working teams will get started in February and will stretch into March 2012.

“Therefore,” he added, “this treaty will be more inclusive and embracing, featuring provisions and goods that could be traded between the two nations, something that was out of bounds in the former document.”

Following a grand tour around the Panamanian booths, Mr. Quijano admitted his country is currently interested in tapping into certain sectors of the island nation, such as tourism, agriculture, biotechnology and medicine –rubles that are all included in the upcoming protocol.