5/29/2014
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Visits Cuba
HAVANA – The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group of American business executives visited a cooperative on Wednesday to become acquainted with the new forms of non-state management being pushed in Communist Cuba.
Thomas Donohue toured an auto-repair shop, one of the autonomous cooperatives created as part of President Raul Castro’s push to update the Cuban socialist system.
“We’re very pleased to be here. We’re learning a lot about the changes taking place in Cuba,” the Chamber president told reporters.
In his meeting with the heads of the business, Donohue expressed interest in their new management model as well as in issues such as imports and technology that firms of that kind deal with, co-op president Marcelo Gonzalez said.
Almost a year ago the service cooperatives began operating in Cuba, a novel initiative in a country that during five decades of ongoing revolution had only allowed that management formula to be applied in the agricultural sector.
At this time in Cuba there are more than 450 cooperatives of this kind, according to official figures.
“Productivity, organization and the culture of work loyalty have grown enormously,” Marcelo Gonzalez said, while acknowledging that certain obstacles to full development still remain.
“We’re having difficulties with the reaction of the environment: there are other companies that don’t understand what our cooperative is, that don’t want us to sell because they are still not authorized to do so, they don’t react with the speed of a cooperative and their decisions are delayed,” he said.
The last U.S. Chamber of Commerce mission to Cuba was in 1999.
The visit comes shortly after the public letter that dozens of former officials, retired military officers and business leaders sent to U.S. President Barack Obama asking that more measures be taken to spur a rapprochement with Cuba.
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Chief Visits Cuba
HAVANA – The president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and a group of American business executives visited a cooperative on Wednesday to become acquainted with the new forms of non-state management being pushed in Communist Cuba.Thomas Donohue toured an auto-repair shop, one of the autonomous cooperatives created as part of President Raul Castro’s push to update the Cuban socialist system.
“We’re very pleased to be here. We’re learning a lot about the changes taking place in Cuba,” the Chamber president told reporters.
In his meeting with the heads of the business, Donohue expressed interest in their new management model as well as in issues such as imports and technology that firms of that kind deal with, co-op president Marcelo Gonzalez said.
Almost a year ago the service cooperatives began operating in Cuba, a novel initiative in a country that during five decades of ongoing revolution had only allowed that management formula to be applied in the agricultural sector.
At this time in Cuba there are more than 450 cooperatives of this kind, according to official figures.
“Productivity, organization and the culture of work loyalty have grown enormously,” Marcelo Gonzalez said, while acknowledging that certain obstacles to full development still remain.
“We’re having difficulties with the reaction of the environment: there are other companies that don’t understand what our cooperative is, that don’t want us to sell because they are still not authorized to do so, they don’t react with the speed of a cooperative and their decisions are delayed,” he said.
The last U.S. Chamber of Commerce mission to Cuba was in 1999.
The visit comes shortly after the public letter that dozens of former officials, retired military officers and business leaders sent to U.S. President Barack Obama asking that more measures be taken to spur a rapprochement with Cuba.
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