Díaz-Canel toured subjects of investment involving Chinese companies

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 24 (ACN) What is promised is fulfilled, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said at the beginning of a tour Thursday, along with Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, around objects of investment being developed in the country with Chinese participation.

Weeks ago, during a meeting with foreign businessmen who have donated material and financial resources in solidarity to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the President made an aside with representatives of companies from the People's Republic of China and set out to visit the entities where they work before the end of the year.

At the UEB Gráfica Habana, popularly known as Combinado de Periódicos Granma, Díaz-Canel checked the progress of a project to restructure the production of press and other graphic materials which is currently—and successfully—under way in several provinces, including Havana, with a view to organize the print runs for 2022.

In addition to the provision of modern technologies, the investment process has included a complete overhaul of the buildings housing the main newspapers and publishers and the printing houses in charge of issuing newspapers, magazines, books and notebooks for schools, posters and other items.

The President asked details about the investment process and the range of products they can manufacture and stressed the need to pay the utmost attention to the equipment installed. He also suggested the importance of diversifying production in all possible fields of graphic arts in order to provide as many printed materials as possible to both the population and our libraries and other institutions.

Díaz-Canel placed special emphasis on the manufacture of our own school notebooks, which he described as “unique ones, with a design that reflects our culture and history so as to make them part of the integrated formation of our children and teenagers".

While touring the Network Operations Center of the Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise (ETECSA), also targeted by Chines investors, the President visited the local offices of Yutong, one of the largest automotive business groups in the world, specializing in the manufacture and marketing of buses.

Yutong representative Ariel Yank thanked Díaz-Canel for his visit—together with the Minister of Transportation, Eduardo Rodríguez Dávila—and explained that his company considers Cuba as its main strategic market in the region. He also praised the support that Yutong has received from the top Cuban and Chinese leaders, starting with Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz.

Between 2005 and 2021, Cuba had received and put into service 10,665 buses made by Yutong, which has stated its intention to keep helping and developing the Cuban transport system. This Chinese company also donated 2.2 million euros in support of Cuba's successful fight against the pandemic.

Díaz-Canel said that relations between Cuba and China are based on good feelings and thanked Yutong, whose presence in Cuba he described as very important. “You are our main bus suppliers and as such are part, like other Chinese companies, of our Social Economic Development Plan,” he told his audience.

The President underlined the need to maintain the bus fleet in good conditions and urged the staff of the Cuba office to keep assembling Yutong equipment in Cuba and to consider the possible convenience for the company of making a greater investment in the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), given the facilities offered by this space and the potential opportunities for Yutong to penetrate the Latin American and Caribbean market.

Díaz-Canel also insisted on the importance of purchasing more hybrid and electric technologies, such as Yutong’s, with a view to Cuba’s self-sufficiency in terms of energy. He also encouraged the company staff to get more involved in the control and transportation networks using smart systems, a branch of science and innovation that in Cuba has fertile ground with the informatization of society, now as digital transformation.

At the end of his visit, the President extolled the ties between the two countries. “The Cuban Revolution is a friend and a comrade of the Chinese Revolution,” he told them.