Jamaica to strengthen ties with Cuba

Jamaica’s Industry Minister Karl Samuda says the country is seeking to strengthen cooperation with Cuba in key areas such as agriculture and manufacturing.

At a luncheon hosted for Cuba’s deputy minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Ambassador Ileana Núñez Mordoche, Samuda said Jamaica is seeking to learn from the experience of Cuba, which “has done remarkably well with limited resources.”

He noted as well that Cuba has stayed on the cutting edge of competition with the technology that they have introduced.

Samuda has been having discussions with Mordoche to explore various areas for co-operation.

The Cuban Minister is in the island for a four-day working visit.

According to Samuda, one of the essential areas discussed during the meeting was how Jamaica could benefit from Cuba’s skills in sugar cane cultivation and sugar production.

“Our sugar industry is one sector where we feel we can gain a lot by being exposed to their training techniques and their approaches, in terms of the development of the factories and also the sugar fields as well.”

He said that out of those discussions, his Cuban counterpart extended an invitation for a team from Jamaica to visit Cuba “to see for ourselves, the techniques the methodology and the technology that they have applied to making their industry one of the most vibrant of its kind in the world.

Samuda added that Jamaica could also benefit from Cuba’s successes in the area of animal husbandry, where an alternative-feeding programme is used to reduce dependency on imported raw materials for the manufacture of animal feed.

He noted that Jamaica also hopes to exchange ideas and approaches with Cuba in terms of training opportunities in critical industries.