The Tribune

By RASHAD ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

rrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE governments of The Bahamas and Cuba signed an agricultural agreement last Thursday that officials believe will lead to greater trade of agricultural products between the two countries.

The agreement was signed by Foreign Affairs Minister Fred Mitchell and the Cuban ambassador to the Bahamas, Ernesto Soberón Guzman, at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ headquarters in Cable Beach.

Mr Mitchell said: “This agreement is designed to allow for the trade and the export of agricultural products, of plants and animals from Cuba to The Bahamas and this would put in place the necessary protocols to ensure there is sufficient animal health and you have plant diseases as well, so this makes sure both countries don’t export diseases on to the next.

“That’s the main focus of trying to get the phytosanitary agreement in place. So one is now in place with Haiti. One is now in place with Cuba. Not having this was a bar to trade of these products in the past and the idea was to settle an agreement between both of those countries to facilitate direct trade between those countries of agricultural products.”

Emphasising that the policy will ensure that “protection procedures are in place” in The Bahamas and Cuba, Mr Mitchell said officials had been working on the agreement for a long time.

Given this, he expressed pride in the achievement and said Ambassador Guzman should be “given credit for being the one under whose watch” the agreement came to fruition.

He thanked officials who “worked hard” to produce the agreement and to ensure that mechanisms to ensure it is adhered to are in place.

He said as nations recognise the “necessity for expanded trade,” public policies are being changed to reflect this. The USA’s recent moves to ease relations with Cuba are an example of the superpower’s recognition of the need to expand trade, he said.

For his part, Mr Guzman said the agreement marked a “very important moment in the relations between the two countries.”

He said food security is an issue of national security for both The Bahamas and Cuba and called on the countries to continue working together to accomplish their mutual goal of self-sufficiency.

The phytosanitary agreement with Cuba comes nearly a year after a similar agreement was signed between The Bahamas and Haiti.