• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 12 / 03 / 2010

---

Their import-export rights will be centralized. Several major business companies have been barred from trading abroad, in what seems to be a tightening of government control over import-export activities, perhaps combined with a drive against corruption.

Companies like Cuba Petróleos (Cupet), the mobile telecommunications firm Movitel, the Abdala music-recording company, the Socialist Vanguard Foundry, and the Beverage & Refreshments Exporting Co. must cease their import-export activities within 90 days and turn them over to the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, the newspaper Juventud Rebelde reported Thursday.

Other targets include Maritime Port Supplies (SUMARPO), Fishing Products Import Co. (PROPES), the Food Corporation (CORALSA), Cuba Aluminum (ALCUBA) and Hotel Engineering. Future negotiations by those companies will be handled by an organization still to be determined, the paper said.

The decision is "attune to the current actualization of the economic model," the article said, and seeks "a greater rationalization in the country's importation activities through a regrouping of the enterprises that perform foreign-trade activities." The final objective is "to achieve an effective utilization of the country's purchasing power."

The article does not say how many companies will lose their trading capabilities but predicts that "the list will surely grow." (PHOTO SHOWS the minister of Foreign Trade, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, whose responsibilities and power will also surely grow.)
–Renato Pérez Pizarro.

Source: //miamiherald.typepad.com/cuban_colada/2010/12/