Brazil extends Cuba ties
Wednesday, 16 Jan 2008 11:07
Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has an eye on Cuba after Fidel Castro
Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva has extended his country's links with Cuba on a visit to the communist country.
Mr Lula extended credit and technological offers to Havana on his second trip to Havana since becoming president in 2003. He arrived from Guatemala where Alvaro Colom was inaugurated as president on Monday.
According to the Reuters agency Cuba will receive credit lines worth $1 billion (£511,000) for food imports, mining and transport infrastructure improvements as a result.
Brazilian state oil firm Petrobras will drill for oil in the Gulf of Mexico and a lubricants plant is also expected to be constructed.
Analysts say the move undermines US support for complete isolation of the Cuban regime.
But with 81-year-old Fidel Castro suffering poor health many Latin American states are defying the US stance to foster improved relations with Havana.
Photographs of the pair showed the ailing octogenarian looking alert but frail.
Brazil is Cuba's eighth-largest trading partner in terms of total exchange and the second largest in the region.