Cuban authorities assured that foreign investors continued to show interest in the Caribbean island last year, forming joint ventures and cooperation projects with state-run companies despite a hard currency crunch, sluggish economy and the U.S. blockade.
The Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation Ministry said state-run companies formed 24 joint ventures and signed more than 70 cooperative production agreements, according to a report on the ministry´s year-end meeting in the Communist Party´s daily, Granma.
The cost reduction plan implemented by Sol Meliá early last year in the face of some very gloomy perspectives following the 9/11 terrorist attacks has led, among other things, to payroll cutbacks.
Tourism became Guatemala’s second-best source of revenues in 2002 –only trailing money remittances- with $492.5 million for a walloping 24.3 percent more than in 2001, local authorities reported.
Moreover, “the sector has kept up a steady growth in recent years and has clinched the importance of the leisure industry for the national economy,” the Guatemalan Tourism Institute (INGUAT is the acronym in Spanish) stated in a press release.
An Argentine investment fund disclosed its intention to pony up $65 million to build a deluxe hotel in one of the most exclusive zones of Buenos Aires. The new lodging facility –to be run by Hyatt Hotels- will be built in the backyard of the Duhau Palace, a historic French-style building constructed in 1930 in the fancy borough of Recoleta.
American Corp., main office of American Airlines and American Eagle –the world’s largest air carrier- sustained the heaviest losses of its history with a record-breaking $3.5 billion in 2001.
In the last quarter of the year, its $529 million worth of losses were not as big as in the third quarter. However, the fleeting good news could not prevent the company from swaying in the red in a year labeled here as one of the worst ever in the history of aviation.
Despite efforts to diversify the offer of tourist services in Quintana Roo, such as ecological tourism, there’s still a profound shortage of investment and a poor infrastructure to provide those new sectors with, entrepreneurs from the industry admitted.
Gerardo Gomez Nieto, president of Sylvatica Venturas enterprise –a tourist promoter in the state of Quintana Roo- recognized there are less than ten companies offering that kind of service in the Mexican Caribbean.