Texas port gearing up for increased exports to Cuba

Texas port gearing up for increased exports to Cuba

Web Posted: 07/27/2006 08:24 PM CDT

Meena Thiruvengadam
Express-News Business Writer

More U.S.-produced poultry and beans are set to head through Corpus
Christi to Cuba starting next month.

Alimport, Cuba's food importing agency, has promised to buy nearly
17,000 tons of poultry from Arkansas-based Ozark Mountain Poultry. The
meat will be shipped through the Port of Corpus Christi starting this fall.

Corpus Christi is one of about 17 U.S. ports that have been trading with
Cuba since the U.S. government in 2000 eased a trade embargo put in
place in the 1960s to pressure the communist Cuban government.

"This is a significant market for our port," said Michael Perez, the
Port of Corpus Christi's business development director. "You're talking
about an island with the buying power of the greater New York City area."

WestStar Food Co. in Corpus Christi, which has been exporting to Cuba
since 2003, is preparing to ship 10,000 pounds of pinto beans next month.

"The beans are grown up north, but a lot of the consumers are in the
Southern U.S., Mexico and the Caribbean, so this is a logical place for
exporting," managing partner Pat Wallesen said.

Cuba didn't begin accepting U.S. food imports until after Hurricane
Michelle devastated the island's crops in 2001.

The Port of Corpus Christi has shipped more than 100,000 tons of
agricultural products to the island of 11 million people and expects
export volumes to double within a year.

With avian flu fears cutting poultry imports around the globe, Cuba has
become an increasingly important market for U.S. poultry producers.

"Cuba has been the one international market that's been consistently
buying U.S. poultry," Perez said.

Since the embargo was eased, more than $1.2 billion in U.S. food and
agricultural supplies have been shipped to the island.

Alimport, Perez said, promises another $25 billion in trade in a
five-year period if trade relations between Cuba and the United States
are normalized.

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