Cuba to build pharmaceutical plant in Bolivia

Cuba to build pharmaceutical plant in Bolivia
BY NELSON ACOSTA
HAVANA Mon Sep 22, 2014 4:06pm EDT

(Reuters) - The Cuban state-owned pharmaceutical and chemical company
Labiofam plans to build a complex in Bolivia that would help the South
American country meet 100 percent of its demand for basic medicine, the
company said on Monday.

Bolivian President Evo Morales requested the project and Bolivia will
finance it, Labiofam Director General Jose Antonio Fraga said without
disclosing the cost.

"We should sign the contract at the end of this month," Fraga told
Reuters at a company meeting on Monday. "If we sign the contract we will
start right away." Bolivia hopes to supplement current supplies and meet
100 percent of its domestic demand for basic medicine once the project
is complete, and any excess production would be exported mostly to
countries within the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of America
(ALBA), an association created by leftist governments in Latin America.

"This is basically for poor people because they can't afford the prices
set by the trans-nationals," Fraga said. "So these industries will be
subsidized by the state or their products will be sold at a very small
profit margin, just to sustain themselves, not to get rich."

Bolivia in 2012 created the Fund for the Productive Industrial
Revolution (FINPRO) to finance such projects. Of the trust fund's $1.2
million, some $900 million have been set aside for public development
projects, such as a $300 million cement factory and a $50 million
powdered milk plant.

Labiofam was created in the 1960s with the help of former Soviet bloc
nations and today does business in 60 countries.

In Cuba it produces 98 percent of the veterinary medicine used on the
island and also makes nutritional supplements, homeopathic medicine,
pesticides, cleaning products and plastic containers.

(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; Additional reporting by Daniel Ramos in La
Paz; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Andrew Hay)

Source: Cuba to build pharmaceutical plant in Bolivia | Reuters -
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/09/22/us-cuba-bolivia-idUSKCN0HH2N720140922