Cuba’s Economy to Post Double-Digit Increase in 2007

Cuba expects its economic growth to slip down a gear this year to around 10 percent but remain among the strongest in the region, a senior government official said last week.

Cuba, which reported growth of 12.5 percent in 2006, is feeling a pinch in its vital tourist industry this year, due in part to a warm European winter and cheaper destinations elsewhere in the Caribbean.

“I think that this year the economy will have a growth rate of not less than 10 percent. But certainly, very strong growth,” Osvaldo Martinez, the head of Parliament’s Economic Commission, told Reuters.

“To sustain growth of 12.5 percent is extremely difficult. Growth of 10 percent would very likely be once more the highest in Latin America, so there is nothing to worry about,” he said, after a conference on the United Nations’ World Water Day.

Foreign exchange earnings have nearly doubled over the last two years, thanks mainly to the export of medical and other services to ally Venezuela and soaring nickel prices. Yet Cuba still relies heavily on tourism, which brought in $2.4 billion last year.