House factories and cement – gifts from Cuba
The official visit by Prime Minister Said Musa concluded today with the signing of several agreements for aid and an increase in the number of scholarships which will be offered to Belizean students. Students already in Cuba met with the Prime Minister and his delegation last night during a reception and also attended a press conference this afternoon. Belize’s Ambassador to Cuba, Amalia Mai spoke to News Five this afternoon about the activities in Havana today and what the delegation has been able to accomplish through the visit.
Amalia Mai, Belize’s Ambassador to Cuba
“Since yesterday a lot has happened. The highlight of today of course will be the signing of the four agreements with Cuba. That is going very well, actually we are getting much more than we had anticipated. In terms of the agreement on the housing project, we had initially started negotiation on one plant, one factory, and now the Cuban government has been kind enough to throw in another one. The number of scholarships has also been increased to include ten for doctors when we only had six before and it now totals sixty and not fifty.
The contracts were signed earlier today with Minister Mes and the agency involved in the project we are going to be initiating in Belize. And of course tourism will be signed in a few minutes and so is education and sports.”
Q: “According to the schedule you should be meeting, if you haven’t already, with the group of Belize students in Cuba. How is that going?”
Amalia Mai
“They were quite excited; they were invited last night to the reception that the commandant hosted in honor of Prime Minister Musa. They turned out in large numbers because they were disbursed throughout the island so it was a tremendous effort to attempt to get them to Havana coming at this time when there are exams and what not, but they did turn out and they were very, very happy to see the Prime Minister.
This evening they will also visit the other Ministers and they are going to discuss issues that they have been preparing and telling the Prime Minister how they feel about living here and what assistance he can give them, apart from what they already have through the government and issues like that that they feel that they need to clear up with the government.”
Q: “Do you have any idea how the meetings are going between Belize’s private sector delegation and their Cuban counterparts?”
Amalia Mai
“I am told that it has been going extremely well; they have been meeting with different agencies that they intend to do business with, there have been varied interests and so they have been having separate meeting with different people and different agencies.”
Q: “We understand that the delegation will be returning to Belize tomorrow, what will be happening tonight which would be kind of the finale of the visit?”
Amalia Mai
“As I said the highlight of course has to be signing of the agreements in the next few minutes, the meeting with the students tonight and the Cuban government is also hosting the Prime Minister to a cultural event. But today there was a visit to the monument, the Che’s Monument, who was a hero here in Cuba and then there was a floral arrangement that took place at the Jose Marti, who you may know, when he was ten visited Belize.”
Besides the two house factories, Minister of Housing Dickie Bradley also convinced the Cuban Minister of Construction to throw several million dollars of cement into the deal. Also accompanying the Prime Minister are the Minister of Economic Development Ralph Fonseca, Minister of Education Cordel Hyde, Minister of Culture Marcial Mes and Minister of Tourism Mark Espat. A number of Belizean business people and members of the press are also part of the delegation that returns tomorrow. A press conference will be held at the Philip S.W. Goldson International Airport.
