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MIAMI: With President Fidel Castro in declining health, a growing number of companies in the United States are making plans to do business in Cuba.
This is due in part to Acting President Raul Castro's apparent conciliatory tone toward the US.
In Miami, business leaders and investors are closely watching developments in Cuba.
Many view potential political change there as an opportunity.
Investment adviser Thomas Herzfeld has established a portfolio of American companies set to benefit if the US embargo against Cuba is lifted.
Said Thomas Herzfeld of Thomas J Herzfeld Advisors: "From early on, we decided that once the trade was resumed with Cuba, Cuba being the most important of the island countries in size and population, there would be a boom in that country - one that we believe would proliferate throughout the region, and we always focused on Cuba. But of course being a US investor and a US citizen, we can't invest directly in that country. So we have invested in companies that we believe will do well even if trade is not resumed with Cuba, but also in companies that would benefit once trade is resumed."
Herzfeld's Caribbean Basin Fund is a small one.
Its assets are worth US$14 million and it is being traded on the Nasdaq with the ticker symbol CUBA.
It is a closed-end fund. So, unlike a mutual-fund, its share price is determined by the demand on market rather than the value of the fund's assets.
The value of the fund's stock has risen 120 percent in the past year, making it the top performing fund of its kind in America.
Herzfeld says Raul Castro's recent comments give business cause for optimism.
Said Herzfeld: "For those of us who've been listening to Raul since he took over power last August, he's taken a much more conciliatory posture towards the US. Now, how far will he go towards free elections, releasing the political prisoners, compensation for confiscated property, return to capitalism, how far will he go and how soon will he do it? That would be the key, in my view, towards the US resuming trade with Cuba and we'll just have to see."
In Cuba, infrastructure is crumbling and, Herzfeld says, the country needs 40,000 new homes.
The Caribbean Basin Fund includes US construction, railroad, water, telecommunications and tourism companies.
Traditional Cuban industries such as rum, sugar, tobacco, mining and fisheries also present foreign investment opportunities.
Camilla Gallardo, who is from the Cuban American National Foundation, said: "They're going to need a lot of investment into the country and a lot of help in reconstruction and certainly, we encourage companies that are looking and dealing in a post-Castro Cuba to do just that, I mean, as they would anywhere else. And certainly that would be of great assistance to helping create jobs and industry in Cuba that don't exist today."
But in Miami, some Cuban-Americans doubt that American business can flourish on the island.
Alvaro Fernandez is among them.
He campaigns against the US embargo, but he believes that American industry will be at a disadvantage once trade is resumed.
"There is an opportunity and the United States of America will come in late. Anybody who follows what is going on in Cuba will realise that they are starting to do business with the rest of the world - China, Europe, Italy, Spain, Mexico, you name it, they've got something going with them," said Alvaro Fernandez, president of the Cuban American Commission For Family Rights.
But others, like Thomas Herzfeld, are less concerned.
He thinks non-US companies already in Cuba will be shunned in the future for doing business with the Castro government.
He also denies his efforts are helping to erode the US embargo.
Herzfeld is now meeting with hundreds of businesses on joint ventures, and plans to invest directly in Cuba once the US embargo is lifted. - CNA/ir
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