Democrat Terry McAuliffe, governor of Virginia, highlighted on Tuesday the potential of a close working relationship between the deepwater port of his state and that of Mariel.

Cuban Foreign Trade and Investment Minister Rodrigo Malmierca received in Havana Terry McAuliffe, Governor of the State of Virginia, who is in an official visit to Cuba.

Despite adverse weather resulting from El Niño climatic phenomenon, the Cuban tobacco planting campaign advance at good pace, sources in the sector said.

The digital magazine Report Colombia al Dia highlighted on its most recent number the growth registered by Cuban tourism in 2015, which increased until November by 17.6 percent.

The 4% increase in the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year is a good result, in spite of the international economic crisis and the persistent economic, financial and commercial blockade of the United States, asserted on Tuesday Army General Raul Castro, President of the Cuban councils of State and Ministers.

Cuban lawmakers are gathering Tuesday at the 6th Session of the Cuban Parliament´s 8 th Legislature to consider the performance of the country´s economy in 2015 and its prospects for 2016 and the pace and results during the past five years of the update of Cuban economy.

The Cuban government will grant credits to Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) in order to invest in livestock from next January.

Workers of the Internacional Cubana de Tabacos (ICT by its Spanish acronym) produced more than 134 million cigars for the domestic market and export this year.

Cuban Economy Minister Marino Murillo said that, despite the negative impact of the US blockade on Cuba and financial restrictions, the Gross Domestic Product grew 4 percent in 2015, compared to last year.

The Telecommunications Company of Cuba S.A, (ETECSA by its Spanish acronym) informs to its customers of nauta mail services on the measures it will apply in compensation for technical difficulties produced in the last weeks of November which caused disruption and instability of this service.

With the aim of strengthening and expanding exchanges, Cuba and the Kingdom of Sweden signed on Friday in Havana a memorandum of understanding to establish a practical and effective mechanism of consultation between Foreign Ministries.

More than a million Cubans are linked -from one way or another- to the National and Urban, Suburban and Family Agriculture Program, a production system that emerged 18 years ago.

Even while critics and pessimists have sought to injure its growing popularity as a tourist destination, Cuba ends 2015 with an encouraging development of this sector, able to inject to its economy over two billion dollars a year .