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HAVANA : India and Cuba have renewed bilateral science and technology agreements and reviewed their relations during a visit by Indian Foreign Minister Anand Sharma.
"The economic relations with Cuba are going very well, but they will go even better," said Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage, who cautioned however that Tuesday's deals would not lead to "spectacular leaps" in bilateral relations.
Lage said Sharma's trip represented "the traditionally friendly and fraternal relations that have always existed between Cuba and India."
Sharma headed an Indian delegation to an intergovernmental meeting that opened in Havana Monday.
On the opening day, Sharma underscored "his country's willingness to increase economic and cooperation relations" with Cuba "to raise them to the rank of the political relations," the Cuban official newspaper Granma said.
"Our two countries have worked together in multilateral forums and also have worked very strongly in mutual interests," the Indian minister said.
Cuba and India have close political ties in various international forums, particularly in the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement. Cuba has held the NAM presidency since September and has reaped thousands of dollars in bilateral contracts in oil and biotechnology.
India's state-run oil company signed a six-year deal in September with Cuba for oil exploration in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under the deal, India's Oil and National Gas Corporation (ONGC) will explore blocs N-34 and N-35, which cover an area of 4,300 square kilometres (1,544 square miles) in Cuban waters.
ONGC already has a 30 percent interest in six other blocs in which Norway's Norsk Hydro also has 30 percent interest and Spain's Repsol YPF 40 percent.
Officials of the state-run Cuba Petroleos (CUPET) say a total of six companies have signed exploration deals for 16 blocs in the Gulf of Mexico.
Contracts have been signed, in addition to those with companies from India, Norway and Spain, with firms in Venezuela, China, Canada and Malaysia.
Cuba and India also are developing strong investments in biotechnology and joint production of medicines.
A new plant for the production of the HR3 antibody, a human monoclonal antibody developed by Cuban scientists and used in the treatment of head and neck cancer, opened in April in India.
A factory producing Cuban vaccine against Hepatitis B has been operating in the Asian country since 2002.
New Delhi has cooperated with Havana through the work of some 300 specialists in agriculture, electronics, information technology and industrial textiles.
- AFP/ms
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