The Board of Directors of Cuba’s Chamber of Commerce got an all-out facelift. Now Sara Marta Diaz will be the new president of the state-run institution.

For a number of years, Mrs. Diaz worked as juridical director and secretary-general for the Chamber of Commerce. She also served a stint as Cuba’s trade advisor to Santiago de Chile. For the first time ever in forty years and seven presidents later, a woman takes over as top chief of the island nation’s Chamber of Commerce.

Sol Meliá, Spain’s number-one hotel chain and tenth worldwide, announced it netted gross benefits for $41.74 million in the first nine months of 2003 for a 33 percent upswing compared to the same span of time the year before.

Cuba’s central province of Villa Clara got a chance to show off its business opportunities for foreign investment during the recently concluded 21st edition of the Havana International Fair.

The local leisure industry laid out its own refurbishment schemes for the Comercio Hotel in Caibarien and the Barcelona Resort in Remedios in an effort to grab some funds for getting those projects going. On the other hand, the province’s mid-sized and small industries requested technological support for the assembly and manufacturing of a number of items.

Foreign tourism brought in more than $7 billion between January and September this year for a blistering 7.1 percent growth compared to 2002. This time up, the Mexican government expects to reach a record high of $9 billion.

The 21st edition of the Havana International Fair –the island nation’s biggest annual tradeshow- rolled down the curtains last Sunday with as many as $160 million in contracts, the largest chunk of them inked with U.S. companies, official sources reportedly said.

The fair that got cracking last Nov. 2 had a turnout of 1,293 companies from 48 countries, including 700 foreign firms.

The Posadas Group, a Mexican hotel chain, has started out an ambitious two-year expansion plan across Latin America that entertains the possibility of opening a number of resorts in Brazil, Chile and Argentina with a $400 million budget.

The building impulse derived from this project will add some 20,000 rooms to the group’s stock of accommodations, announced Pablo Azcarraga, deputy vice president of hotel operations for Posadas.