An Giang Province to Open Trade Office in Cuba Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit [Thomas R. Hargrove is the author of a number of books about his international travels and the rice industry. He began his rice career in Vietnam as part of army MAT team in the Mekong Delta as an "advisor" helping to bring the blessings of yankee agrobiz to the primitive delta farmers (while his brethren were bringing the blessings of yankee weapons technology and chemical warfare raining down on their heads.) His wonderful red rice wasn't too useful ... it wasn't napalm proof. His book about Vietnam is called "A Dragon Lives Forever." Hargrove later went to the IRRI, International Rice Research Institute, in the Philippines, as a PR guy, and then to an outfit with the unfortunate name of CIAT in Colombia, where he got grabbed by the FARC for 11 months in December, 1994. He was ransomed by his family for half a million yankee dollars, when the nice folks he worked for refused to negotiate with his kidnappers. He wrote a book about that, too, made from notes he says he smuggled out in his money belt written on pages from his checkbooks and some children's coloring books. A very Bad Movie was later released based on his story and a Vanity Fair article about the international kidnapping business. Hargrove returned to yanquilandia to write and tell his story and testify before Congress, always emphasizing what terrible and ignorant, semi-retarded, non-political, drug-running brutes his FARC kidnappers were. Not the sort of people naive revolutionary groupies in the US should be supporting at all, no sirree. This is a guy who knows how to write, and he knows rice. He has worked his entire life for liberal do-good organizations that supposedly bring the benefits of civilization (read: agrobiz) to the poor and downtrodden.Throughout his career, his salary has been paid by the likes of the US Army and US AID. One of those "good people" in whose name bad things are done. He does not mention here that Vietnam, the country which supposedly so needed yanqui help to grow better rice, has been donating rice to Cuba throughout the special period, to help employers feed their workers in Cuba's subsidized lunchroom programs. One hopes the Agent Orange is mostly gone from the soil in the Delta thee days. Regardless, the following story is of interest because the Texas agro-industry, is very eager to trade with Cuba. The Texas legislature has approved a resolution calling for the repeal of the embargo, which passed by default when the Governor failed to veto or sign it. Hargrove, a Texan, lives in Galveston these days and is now the editor of the two-year-old rice industry website, PlanetRice.net -- NY Transfer] source - Walter Lippmann, groups.yahoo.com/group/cubanews Rice-Rich Vietnamese Province Opens Trade Office in Cuba An Giang Province, in the southern Mekong Delta, produces 2.4 million tons of rice per year by Tom Hargrove, PlanetRice Editor-in-Chief www.planetrice.com June 18, 2001 LONG XUYEN, AN GIANG PROVINCE, VIETNAM--An Giang Province, in Vietnam's rice-rich southern Mekong Delta, will open an office in Cuba to promote bilateral trade, according to the Voice of Vietnam on June 16. Rice trade will be a priority; Cuba has said that it wants to import more Vietnamese rice. The agreement was reached on June 14 by a delegation of the Cuban Foreign Trade Ministry, led by Estrella Madrigal Valdes, deputy minister for imports and exports, and An Giang People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Minh Nhi. Nhi informed the Cuban guests of his province's economic and export potential. An Giang produces 2.4 million metric tons of unmilled rice, 60,000 tons of fish, and tens of thousands of tons of vegetables and peas annually. The province earns US$150 million yearly from exports of leather footwear, garments, and rice. An Giang can provide Cuba's market with rice, fish, pork, poultry, peas, leather shoes, and ready-made clothes, the broadcast stated. Jobs will be created for both sides if An Giang supplies semi-finished footwear products and sewing machines to Cuba to finish the products. He also said that An Giang need to import Cuban sugar and medicines for the treatment of heart disease and hepatitis. Cuba wants to increase the amount of rice it imports from Vietnam, Deputy Minister Valdes said. She and An Giang officials agreed that projects that create more employment for both Cuba and Vietnam are needed. Valdes briefed the host on her country's competitive products, including medical equipment for heart disease treatment. Meanwhile, U.S. rice sales to Cuba, once its biggest rice export market, are stagnant. Bridges to Cuban People Act A coalition of liberals and farm state members have introduced a measure in Congress designed to further ease the sale of food and medicine to Cuba, the Miami Herald reported on June 13. The Bridges to the Cuban People Act, authored by Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., a leading critic of the embargo on Cuba, has 14 cosponsors, including three Republicans: Sens. Richard Lugar of Indiana, former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Pat Roberts of Kansas; and Lincoln Chafee of Rhode Island. The companion House bill, with about 80 cosponsors, was introduced by Jose Serrano, a Bronx Democrat and one of the Houses most liberal members, and Jim Leach, an Iowa Republican who once chaired the Banking Committee. New U.S. trade law doesn't allow credit; Cuba resents restrictions The U.S. Congress last year passed a law, long awaited by the U.S. rice industry, allowing the direct sale of U.S. foods and medicines to Cuba for the first time in four decades. But the new legislation hasn't increased U.S.-Cuban rice trade, because it doesn't allow the U.S. government or U.S. banks to finance import sales, and demands that Cuba pay in cash or use third-country credit. The bill also prohibits reciprocal Cuban sales to the United States. Those provisions effectively block most potential exports to the Communist island nation, PlanetRice reported on Feb. 11. The Cuban government especially resents the financing restrictions--which prevent American companies and banks from giving credit directly to Cuban buyers--that were added at the last minute by Representative Lincoln Diaz-Balart, a Miami Republican, and other legislators who opposed weakening the embargo, the New York Times reported. Cuba ranks among the world's worst credit risks, so finding financial institutions willing to bankroll trade will be difficult, PlanetRice reported on Dec. 13. An editorial in Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba's Communist Party, stated that, "Our country will not acquire one penny's worth of food and medicine in the United States." Granma called the financing conditions "humiliating" and "unjust." The Cuban government encouraged more than half a million people in Havana to protest the U.S. "trade opening." Former U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy visited Cuba in May and said, ``The United States trades with China. The United States trades with Vietnam. To isolate Cuba and not trade with it is illogical." First U.S. ship turned away from Cuba Meanwhile, the M/V Orso, the first U.S. ship in almost 40 years to carry U.S. products to Cuba, was to have docked at the Port of Havana on April 21. But Cuba refused docking permission the night of April 20, the New York-based U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council (CTEC) reported on May 2. The Havana arrival of the Antigua-flagged container ship, leased by Jacksonville-based Crowley Liner Services, would have been historic--the first cargo service from the United States to Cuba permitted by the U.S. government since 1962. PlanetRice reported the Orso's departure on April 19, but could not learn if the cargo included rice. Cuban rice sales could be significant Cuba, 90 miles from Florida, was the top U.S. rice market until 1962 when President John Kennedy imposed a trade embargo with the communist island nation. Cuba's annual per-capita rice consumption is about 40 kilograms, according to statistics from the Philippine-based International Rice Research Institute. Cuba's current population of 11.2 million is projected to rise to 13 million by 2025. A recent U.S. International Trade Commission report estimated that U.S. rice exports to Cuba could total $40 to $59 million annually. But it could be more. Cuba now imports 350,000 to 400,000 metric tons of rice--worth about $110 million--from U.S. competitors, mainly China and Vietnam. With free trade, annual rice exports to Cuba could be from 550,000 to 600,000 metric tons--20% of the United States' total rice exports, estimates Richard E. Bell, president of the Arkansas-based Riceland Foods. ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org e-mail: nyt@blythe.org ================================================================= nytas-06.19.01-20:38:48-15233