Mexican Firm to Overhaul Cuban Phone System
Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari announced Monday that a Mexican investment company has signed a historic agreement to overhaul Cuba’s decrepit telephone system.
Salinas denounced the 3-decade-old U.S. trade embargo against Cuba as he confirmed the deal by a private group to obtain a 49% stake in the Cuban Telecommunications Enterprise.
“This blockade doesn’t resolve anything,” Salinas said at a news conference before he capped the six-hour trade mission and flew to Cartagena, Colombia, for a summit of Spanish-speaking nations.
Salinas used the word blockade , which is favored by the Cubans, and not the milder term embargo used by the U.S. government in disclosing what he called a “major telecommunications contract” between Mexico and Cuba.
Salinas and Cuban trade officials refused to discuss specifics of the accord.
But the deal would mark Cuba’s first major privatization since the 1959 revolution led by Fidel Castro. Some Cuban telephone circuits date to the 1920s.
An official with Grupo Domos International said the private Mexican investment group had arranged a $1.4-billion agreement that would also provide a shot at developing a potentially lucrative long-distance market.
“Key to the deal is telephone traffic with the U.S.,” said Miguel Angel Thierry, an executive of Grupo Domos, based in Monterrey, Mexico.
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