10-27-08, 9:20 am

HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 25 (ACN) – By forbidding American companies to do business in Cuba, the US economic blockade caused the Caribbean nation’s economy a loss estimated at $300 million in 2007, according to Raciel Proenza Rodriguez, head of the North American Division of the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation (MINVEC), during a press conference in Havana.

The figure was estimated by comparing the performance of other similar economies in the region, like Costa Rica, Honduras, the Dominican Republic and Peru, the specialist explained.

The loss inflicted on Cuban economy is also based on the number of US investors who are interested in making investment on the Caribbean country. Nearly 3,580 US entrepreneurs visited Cuba on that interest between 1999 and 2007, with the largest annual number of them (806) in 2003.

The stiffening of the US economic blockade by the so-called Bush Plan has discouraged American business people from coming to Cuba, due to the high fines that could be imposed on those who step on Cuban soil; only nine visits were reported in 2007, Proenza Rodriguez said.

The extraterritorial US economic, financial and commercial blockade of Cuba chases enterprises of third countries, which do or might do business with Cuba, while Washington also makes pressure on international agencies to exclude Cuba from their agendas. Due to those pressures, the UBS Swiss bank rejected Cuba’s payment of its membership fee at the World Association of Investment Promotion Agencies last year; the action prevented Cuba’s participation in the agency’s annual conference.

The US economic blockade, imposed on Cuba in 1962, has caused the country a loss amounting to $93 billion. Cuba will present a new resolution against the US hostile policy next Wednesday, October 29, at the UN General Assembly, which overwhelmingly rejected the genocidal US blockade with 183 votes in favor of the Cuban resolution last year.

From the Cuban News Agency