– Cuba Relations

1. Political : Indo-Cuba relations have been traditionally warm and friendly. India was amongst the first countries to extend recognition to Cuba after the 1959 Revolution. Both countries have maintained close contacts with each other in various international fora, such as the UN, NAM, WTO, etc. Both have supported each other's candidature to various UN bodies. India has been supporting Cuba against US supported resolutions at the UN Human Rights Council and also consistently voted in favour of Cuban sponsored resolutions in the UN General Assembly calling for lifting of US sanctions against Cuba.

2. UN Reforms : Cuba shares India's views on democratising UN and expansion of the UN Security Council. It also holds the reform of the UN Security Council as central to the overall reform process. Cuba supports India's inclusion as a permanent member in the restructured UN Security Council. Cuba also voted in favour of India’s candidature for Non-Permanent Seat in UNSC.

3. Relief Assistance and Goodwill : India granted an aid of US$ 2 million in cash as disaster relief assistance to Cuba in the wake of massive devastations caused by the hurricanes Gustav, Ike and Paloma during August and September 2008. Early in the year 2008, Government of India had written off the principal and interest of US$62 million, equivalent to Rs. 1.28 billion debt owed to India. The donation was a measure of solidarity towards the friendly people and the Government of Cuba and this act further strengthened the existing warm and friendly bilateral ties. Cuba accepted with thanks this gesture of solidarity from the Indian people and Government. India also granted aid to Cuba when it was passing through severe economic crisis in early 1990s. India has extended a credit line of US $ 5 million for the milk processing plant. Three other credit lines amount to US $ 42 million are under process in the Ministry.

4. Bilateral Visits : Since the Cuban Revolution in 1959, many important bilateral visits at HOS/HOG level have been exchanged from both sides. Immediately after the Cuban Revolution, first Prime Minister of India Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru and President Fidel Castro and revolutionary leader Che Guevara had held meetings Thereafter PM Rajiv Gandhi and PM also paid state visits to Cuba. Several other ministerial visits have also been made to Cuba. Likewise. President Fidel Castro and Che Guevara paid visits to India in late 50s and early 70s and 80s. Besides, President of the Cuban National Assembly, many other Ministers have also held bilateral discussions with their counterparts during their visits to India. Details are as under:

Visits (From India to Cuba)

PM Jawaharlal Nehru met President Fidel Castro in New York - 1960 PM Rajiv Gandhi – 1985 FM PV Narasimha Rao – 1989 MOS Salman Khursheed – 1993 MOS Vasundhara Raje Sindhia – 1999 Dr. Murali Manohar Joshi, Minister of HRD and S&T- 2000 Shri Balyogi, Speaker – 2001 MOS Rao Inderjit Singh -2005 PM Manmohan Singh – 2006 MOS Anand Sharma – 2006 and 2007 Shri Mani S Aiyar, Minister of Sports -2007 Shri Vilas B Muttemwar, Minister for New and Renewable Energy -2007 Shri , MP, – 2007 (UNAIDS Programme) Shri Somnath Chatterjee, Speaker, Lok Sabha – 2008 Shri E Ahamed, MOS(EA)- March 2009 Shri Ajay Maken, MoS, Youth Affairs & Sports (February 2012)

Visits (From Cuba to India)

President Fidel Castro – 1973 and 1983 Che Guevara – 1959 FM Roberto Robaina Gonzales – 1994 and 1997 President of Cuban National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcon – 1996 Deputy FM Guerra Mencherro – 2004 FM Felipe Roque – April 2007 Vice-President of the Cuban Parliament Mr. Jaime Crombet – May 2007 First Vice Minister of Sports Mr. Roberto Leon Richards – May 2007 Head of the International Affairs Department, Communist Party of Cuba Mr Remirez Fernandez, March 2008 Vice-Minister for Foreign Trade Mr. Eduardo Escandell Amador –May 2008 Vice Minister, M/o Light Industries Mr. Eloy de la Caridad Alvarez Martinez-Sept. 2010 Director, FINLAY Institute, Dr. Concepcion Campa Huergo – February 2011

5. Agreements : India and Cuba have many important agreements on Bilateral Trade, Cultural, S&T, Standardization, Sports, Renewable Energy and Consumer Protection. India and Cuba also have mechanism in place of Joint Commission meetings and Foreign Office Consultations. JCM system for the time being has been suspended by Cuba, apparently for financial reasons. Finalisation of Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement (BIPPA) is under way for which a four-member delegation held discussions at Havana on June 1-3, 2011. Likewise discussions on revival of S&T cooperation were also held in June 2011.

6. India’s presence : The major Indian presence is of ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) since 2009, which is planning to drill for oil in one of the blocks assigned to it by the Cuban government off the northern coast of Cuba. OVL feels the prospects are bright although uncertain. It also has a share in the Spanish Repsol led consortium in the same area. OVL has obtained extensions for its concessions and is concerned that the Cuban system is not adequately prepared to provide local infrastructure for intensive oil activities which could begin in 2012. Other fears also concern Cuban government’s attitude if oil is found. Ideally, OVL would like to retain production sharing contract. The current investment amounts to over US$ 70 million and a further US$ 160 million would be required to start exploratory drilling.

There is a microscopic business community from India. Earlier attempts at setting up trading houses such as Birla Group led CIMMCO were wound up on account of difficulties faced in obtaining payments from the government. There are some pharmaceutical companies exploring the market and possibilities for Indian exports of engineering goods such as vehicles and even plants and machinery.

7. Lines of Credit : Government of India has approved a Line of Credit of US$ 5 million for setting up equipment for a milk powder processing plant in Camaguey region of Cuba. Discussions are on with officials to finalise preparations for utilization of this LOC. EXIM Bank will execute from the Indian side.

Further lines of credit for approximately US$ 119 million were sought by the Government of Cuba in 2010. Of these, three requests are active and are under consideration of Government of India/Ministry of External Affairs. All involve engineering projects in chemical and related industries.

8. Cuba’s interest in IT collaboration resulted in India setting up a Center for Excellence in IT in Havana over three years (2007-10). Negotiations are commencing for an investment agreement (BIPPA), with Cuban Government realizing the importance of foreign investment. Other agreements on consular, extradition, etc. are in the pipeline.

9. Bilateral trade has been at a low level for some years (2009-10- US$ 52.94 million; April 2010 – March 2011 US$ 27.66 million). Basic problems in enhancing trade relate to uncertainty of payments; difficulties in obtaining permission for remittances from the Cuban government; and lack of export surplus on the Cuban side of nickel, sugar and other Cuban products. On the Indian side, attempts to interest Indian companies have not had much success, since all negotiations are with the Government of Cuba, in the absence of a private sector. Attempts are being made to identify select foreign companies in Cuba, who can serve as agents for Indian companies.

10. Science & Technology has been a significant area for bilateral cooperation, although there has not been too much recent activity. A delegation from Ministry of Science & Technology visited Cuba in June 2011 for discussions in areas of bio- technology, energy, software, etc. Collaboration in all these areas has been promising and the main areas of interaction have been bio-technology and software. There has been active cooperation between Indian company BIOCON and Cuba’s CIMAB which has provided technical knowhow and expertise to the former.

11. ITEC and Bilateral Assistance: ITEC cooperation has increased in the last few years. Cuba´s utilisation is 100%. In 2008-09, 50 slots were allocated and utilized. In 2009-2010, 65 slots were allocated to Cuba. Likewise in the year 2010-2011, all 60 slots allocated were fully utilised. For the year 2011-12, 55 slots have been allocated for civil training programmes for technical courses in various disciplines. A 5Kw solar power plant was donated to Cuba under ITEC in 1995. It was followed by one time post commissioning spare parts support worth Rs 5 Lacs. India donated an IT Centre – India Cuba Knowledge Centre- to Cuba for two years and later extended for another year. It was completed in July 2010 and trained over 1900 Cuban professional in different streams. The Centre was implemented by NIIT.

12. Sports Cooperation: During the visit of our then Minister for Sports Mr Mani Shankar Aiyer in early 2007, an agreement on Sports Cooperation was signed. An action plan for strengthening Indo- Cuba sporting links was also agreed upon during the visit of First Vice Minister for Sports of Cuba to India later in the year 2007. The Indian Amateur Boxing Federation and the Army Sports Institute, Pune have been hiring Cuban coaches – boxing, athletics, volleyball, wrestling, judo and diving – on a regular basis . The coaching by Cuban Specialists has helped Indian Boxers to win medals in various competitions including Olympics. A four to six weeks training programme was sponsored jointly by the Ministry of Sports & Youth Affairs, Sports Authority of India and Panchayat Khel Kood Authority ( PYKKA) for 54 High Performance and Community Coaches from all over India at the Cubadeportes in Havana, Cuba in January/February 2011. Another batch of 22 sportsmen underwent six weeks training programme in different disciplines in Havana in April-May, 2011. MoS for Youth Affairs & Sports Shri Ajay Maken led the six-member delegation comprising of Shri Rajinder Singh Chib, Minister for Technical Education, Youth Affairs & Sports and medical Education, Govt. of Jammu & Kashmir, Shri Rahul Bhatnagar, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports, Shri Gopal Krishna, Secretary, Sports Authority of India, Dr. Amiya Chandra, Private Secretary to MOS (YA&S) and Shri Kiran Wattal, Secretary of State, Sports Council of J&K paid an official visit to Cuba from February 12 to 15, 2012. Besides holding discussions with his counterpart, President of INDER Mr. Julio Christian Jimenez Molina and to visit Cuba Sports Facilities in Havana, he also signed a MoU on Cooperation of Sports between India and Cuba for a period of three years.

13. Culture: Indian culture and civilization is well appreciated in Cuba. Yoga and Vipassana are practised and the former forms part of the health curriculum of the Government. There are several followers of Shri Shri Ravi Shankar. Interest in Ayurveda and Indian Naturopathy is increasing. Workshops on Indian Philosophy are organised by local clubs. Tagore’s birth anniversary is celebrated every year. On 7th May, 2007, a bust of Tagore donated by ICCR was unveiled in Old Havana. A dance drama was dedicated to the 150 th birth anniversary of Gurudev Tagore in on 12 th May 2011. There is a bust of Mahatma Gandhi and a statue of Mother Teresa in Havana. Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru and Tagore occupy a special place in Cuba. The depth and variety of Indian dance, music and cinema are well known in Cuba. The House of Asia organises regular cultural events – exhibitions, film shows, talks -on India and has a hall dedicated to India where Indian art and craft objects are permanently displayed. The library at Casa de Asia is named after Rabindranath Tagore. A 8-member martial arts group from Hindustan Kalari Sangam , sponsored by ICCR, performed four shows in Cuba in November 2010. 150 th birth anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore was celebrated in Havana, with the help of Cuba film and TV artists who staged the show on the life of Tagore on 12 th May. Painting exhibition and seminar on Gurudev’s life were also organised. A 6-member Indian modern fusion troup “Naad Brahma” sponsored by ICCR participated in the 27 th edition of the Cuban Jazz Festival from 15-18 December 2011.

Likewise a week-long Indian Food Festival was also organised in a prestigious hotel of Havana “Nacional” from 5-9 December 2011. Two ITDC-sponsored chefs for the occasion, spices and ingredients brought from India served to convey the uniqueness of Indian cuisine.

14. Indian Community: Indian Community in Cuba is small. It comprises 25 sisters working for Missionaries of charity and other such organisations, six medical students and two Indian nationals married to Cubans and are settled in Havana. Besides, there are few businessmen of Indian origin who are Canadian and the UK nationals. A third component of the community is the people of Indian origin, descendants of Indians who came to Cuba in the early twentieth century from Jamaica and other part of the West Indies to work on sugarcane plantations. They are settled mostly in Guantanamo province in Eastern Cuba. These people have got totally assimilated into the local culture though some still carry Indian names. There are estimated 200 people.

March 2012