Brazilian businessmen that were part of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s entourage during his visit to Cuba, promised to pour some $200 million into the island nation, sources close to the Brazilian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said today.
Brazilian corporate people and Cuban officials, who held a biannual seminar on trade and investment with the attendance of both countries’ Presidents, inked five investment agreements to develop tourist, pharmaceutical and oil projects.
Air France and KLM, the Dutch air carrier, are shaping up a merger scheduled to see the light of days in just two weeks, a source close to Italian airline Alitalia informed. The alliance rekindles expectations on the creation of the largest airline ever in Europe.
According to the same source, Air France and Alitalia will also ink an agreement to put together a solid intercontinental carrier in the same period of time, a signal that the Italian company’s scrambling efforts to be a part of a European merger are eventually paying off.
After a delayed negotiating process, Brazil’s two largest airlines –Varig and TAM- have finally signed a agreement to merge together. Both carriers have set a 120-day deadline to whip the alliance into shape, a period that could stretch out to 90 more days, sources close to the two companies reported.
With over 60 percent of the domestic market in its hands, the new company doesn’t exclude the possibility of making the Brazilian government join the bandwagon as one of its top shareholders.
International specialists on Caribbean tourism have backed the proposal Jean Holder, Secretary General of the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), of a 20 dollar per head cruise tax as a means to finance sustainable Caribbean tourism development.
Mexico’s inflow of international tourism raked in over $5.7 billion worth of revenues in the first seven months of the ongoing year for a formidable 6.9 percent spike compared to the same span of time in 2002, Mexican tourism minister Rodolfo Elizondo indicated. The country’s leisure industry produces 8.3 percent of its Gross National Product and creates some 1.8 million jobs.
Pestana, a Portugal-based group, is currently negotiating the purchase of the Murano Hotel in Buenos Aires. A source close to the company’s front office informed that only minor details about the buyout remain to be worked out.
The operation includes an investment package in the neighborhood of $10 million and the renaming of the establishment as the Pestana Buenos Aires Hotel. The Murano is a four-star, 133-room resort in the downtown area of the Argentine capital, quite near the Colon Theater.