(task) Cuba open for business, ministers tell French executives | Reuters

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Cuba, Business

Cuba RS

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business, France

> http://www.reuters.com/article/cuba-france-idUSL8N15H1U6 <http://www.reuters.com/article/cuba-france-idUSL8N15H1U6>
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> Cuba open for business, ministers tell French executives
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> Feb 2 Cuba sought to drum up foreign investment on Tuesday as ministers on a state visit to Paris promised French business leaders that the Communist-run country is open for business.
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> Cuba saw growth reach 4 percent last year as the centrally-planned economy gradually opens up and the country re-builds ties with the West.
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> In the latest example of that re-engagement, the ministers were accompanying Cuban President Raul Castro on the first state visit of a Cuban leader to France since the country's independence.
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> Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, Cuba's vice president of the council of ministers, told a French-Cuban business forum that a December debt relief deal with Cuba's Paris Club leaders had lifted a major burden off the cash-starved country's back, clearing the way for further investment.
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> "The government can help put in place a favourable business climate and that is what we are doing," Foreign Trade and Investment Minister Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz said.
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> He added that there was also no taboo in doing business with U.S.-based companies, though the government did not want to become dependent on firms from its vastly bigger northern neighbour either.
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> "We won't keep out American business people, they are welcome, but we want to keep our relations diverse," the minister said, adding: "We don't want to be tributary to anyone."
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> Cuba is hoping to attract flows of foreign investment with a new port 40 kilometres (25 miles) from Havana that it is promoting as a potential regional trade and business hub, offering 10-year tax holidays to foreign businesses that set up there.
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> French construction group Bouygues is building infrastructure at the port while French shipping firm CMA-CGA is setting up a logistics centre there. (Reporting by Leigh Thomas <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=leigh.thomas&>; Editing by Andrew Callus <http://blogs.reuters.com/search/journalist.php?edition=us&n=andrew.callus&>)