Cuba promotes direct foreign investment in telecommunications

HAVANA, Cuba, Jan 25 (ACN) With the aim of developing programs and computer applications and encouraging innovation and technological development in the country, four new foreign investment projects in the area of telecommunications and information technology are promoted in the 2020-2021 Portfolio of Opportunities.

The initiatives for foreign capital in this area are the creation of a Call Center for the export of services, the establishment of an Information Technology Services Center, the construction of network infrastructure and the modernization of the postal network.

Carlos Luis Jorge Méndez, general director of Foreign Investment, highlighted in a Round Table program on the impact of the Re-ordering Task on that branch of foreign trade, that the new decisions favor that activity in Cuba, and will be attractive because the investor will operate in a more transparent economic environment, in which distortions are eliminated.

This financing will also be destined to the creation of science and technology parks, international certification facilities for services, online support and technical assistance modalities, as well as the promotion of new technologies and spaces for research and development of software.

In the case of postal services, foreign investment will seek to improve the quality and commercialization of domestic and international courier services by developing and updating technologies for the processing, distribution and delivery of postal parcels, express parcels and postal graphics.

As support for the implementation of the Integral Policy for the Improvement of the Informatization of Cuban Society, the possible financial support for the construction of network infrastructure would guarantee the broadband connectivity required by the country in the next 10 years.
The Portfolio of Opportunities excludes foreign participation in the operation and commercialization of telecommunications services.

Likewise, no company within the sector will be able to host totally foreign capital, with the exception of those businesses aimed at the development of Information and Communication Technologies, located in science and technology parks.

The telecommunications sector is of great importnace in the Cuban economy, to which is added the high scientific-technical potential of its workers, who are linked, among other things, to the production of software and applications for the development of society, security and technological sovereignty of the Island.