Cuba and Venezuela sign cooperation and trade agreements

GRANMA • Signing in Miraflores Palace in the presence of President Hugo Chávez

CARACAS.— Cuba and Venezuela today signed an agreement to avoid double taxation and fiscal fraud, alongside eight trade agreements within the framework of the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement existing between the two countries, Prensa Latina reports.

The ceremony took place at the Miraflores Presidential Palace in the presence of Hugo Chávez, president;José Vicente Rangel, vice president; the Council of Ministers and heads of autonomous institutions; and Julio Montes, Venezuelan ambassador in Cuba.

The Cuban side was represented by Marta Lomas, minister for foreign investment and economic cooperation; specialists from that agency; Germán Sánchez Otero, the Cuban ambassador to Venezuela; and other officials from the Cuban diplomatic mission.

The agreement on double taxation is applied in Cuba as a tax on profits, personal income, ownership of possession of goods, and in Venezuela as income tax and business assets.

The contracts signed cover tourism, technical advice in that sector and personnel training for expansion in that industry, and plans for the environmental management of coastal areas within this sector.

In the agricultural sector, Cubans and Venezuelans are to continue works on the Ezequiel Zamora Sugarcane Agribusiness being developed in the state of Barinas, as well as technical assistance in the Pío Tamayo sugar mill for cultivation this year.

Another of the documents signed refers to the training of 20 Venezuelan science and technology researchers and the purchase by Caracas of Cuban medical equipment for the early detection of hearing problems in children.

Cuba is to lend technical assistance for the construction of 1,400 low-cost, prefabricated homes, the first group to be started in the state of Nueva Esparta; as well as technical-cultural services from the Ministry of Education, Culture and Sports.

Minister Lomas noted that these contracts complete the cooperation agreement for this year and initiate labors to incorporate further activities in 2004.

She emphasized gains in the field of health, both in terms of medical supplies to Venezuela and the work of the 268 Cuban doctors lending their services in that nation, who are also now working alongside their Venezuelan counterparts in the capital’s barrios.

She recalled that more than 3,000 Venezuelan patients have been treated without charge in Havana, with 1,400 mainly orthopedic, cardiovascular and ophthalmic operations.

The Cuban minister also praised the labors of the more than 760 sports trainers in 20 Venezuelan states and the work of specialists in the sugarcane and agricultural industries.

Finally Marta Lomas referred to the presence in Cuba of more than 700 Venezuelan students on medical courses or being trained as sports technicians and social workers. “We are at the point of consolidating this integrationist program, which is our commitment to Simón Bolívar, José Martí, Fidel Castro and Hugo Chávez,” she concluded