With a New Trade Zone in Mariel, Cuba Reaches Out to Investors Carrie Kahn - NPR.org
go to original October 17, 2015

U.S. Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker (in blue jacket), visits the container port at the Special Enterprise Zone in Mariel, Cuba, on Oct. 6. Cuba is creating the zone to encourage trade and foreign investment. Some foreign companies are eager to move in. (Ramon Espinosa/AP)
 

If you could start selling something in Cuba that would be a sure-fire money maker, what would it be?

Probably something that hasn't been widely available for more than 50 years in the state-controlled economy. A product for which there's pent up demand and one that would surely spruce up the place after decades of neglect.

Mexican businessman Jaime Murow Troice is already selling it: paint.

He has an automated paint factory outside Mexico City, where a giant injector fills metal cans with basic white primer. About 20 percent of Murow's current production goes to Cuba.

But come next year he's banking on selling even more, while also saving shipping costs and import fees. His company is one of the first companies to be approved as a tenant in Cuba's new Special Enterprise Zone.

"We've been working in the Cuban market for a while, we know it," says Murow.

When the opportunity came up to manufacture in the free trade zone in the port of Mariel, Murow says he jumped on it.

Mariel, 30 miles west of Havana, is probably better known for the mass boat lift in 1980, when more than 100,000 Cubans were allowed to leave and headed to Florida.

But today a steady stream of tractor trailers roll into the brand new port. At a cost of $1 billion, and financed mostly by Brazil, it will eventually cover 180 square miles and will be able to handle up to 4 million cargo containers a year. And in the free-trade zone, foreigners can claim 100 percent ownership of their companies and enjoy huge tax breaks.

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