Hanoi has seven companies in the Mariel free zone and proposes to get involved in agricultural development, fishing and energy
14ymedio, Havana, 7 March 2025 — It is not clear what Vietnam is looking for on the Island, but the failure of its largest agricultural project, due to Cuban mismanagement, has not slowed down its intention to do business there. Last Thursday, Le Quang Long, the Vietnamese ambassador to Cuba, was received by Artemisa Province authorities. He expressed Vietnam’s desire to participate in Cuba’s development in agriculture, fishing, tourism and renewable energies.
The authorities of the province rolled out “the red carpet” and said they were willing to “receive Vietnamese investors and companies,” said the VietnamPlus newspaper, paraphrasing the governor of the territory Ricardo Concepción Rodríguez.
Vietnam’s intentions, in addition to the usual incursions into cultivations of rice, corn, soybean and aquaculture crops, are also to invest in other more lucrative businesses: mining and the construction of solar parks, which until now has been controlled by China, Cuba’s largest partner.
The Vietnamese ambassador “promised support for cooperation between the Cuban province of Artemisa and Vietnamese localities,” especially the province of Binh Duong, the country’s media highlighted. Likewise, the diplomat urged his country’s companies that are installed in Cuba, such as AgriVMA, Viglacera and the fertilizer producer Anh Kiet, to expand “collaboration and investments in the province of Artemisa.”
The Vietnamese ambassador “promised support for cooperation between the Cuban province of Artemisa and Vietnamese localities”
In September 2024, the President of Vietnam, To Lam, visited the Mariel Special Development Zone, where seven companies from his country are located. It is the second largest number of companies of a single nation in that free zone, VietnamPlus said at the time, which highlighted the interest of the country in having a presence in the enclave.
In the case of AgriVMA, three months ago an experimental rice planting program began in the municipality of Los Palacios, in Pinar del Río, which this month gave its first results. The harvest of the first 16 hectares, of 1,000 planted with the CT16 grain variety, was valued by VietnamPlus as a sample of “efficient cooperation between Vietnam and Cuba in agriculture.”
Indeed, the plantation had a yield of 7.2 tons of rice per hectare, more than the Vietnamese had predicted. To achieve this, AgriVMA deployed a whole project to support Cuban farmers with training, supplies, fertilizers, pesticides, seeds and agricultural machinery. All this was in order to comply, as the president of the company told the ambassador on a visit to the fields, with the aid agreement signed by both Governments in 2024.
The gain for Hanoi, once again, was not clear, but the project has increased its goals for this coming May. “It is expected that 1,100 hectares of rice grown by the company itself will produce more than 10 tons of grain per hectare in the May harvest, higher than the figure of three tons recorded in most Cuban fields that do not yet have Vietnamese varieties and techniques,” said Vietnam’s media.
“We will carry out an exchange on the techniques applied in the field, and we will provide technical attention to ensure success”
A Vietnamese company, whose name was not disclosed, was also the first foreign entity since 1959 to receive land in usufruct from the Cuban State. It is, initially, the concession of 308 hectares to plant rice on a farm in the south of the province of Pinar del Río, and the official press reported that the experience is unprecedented.
Thanks to AgriVMA, Havana also managed to recover the planting of rice in La Sierpe, in Sancti Spíritus, which had been abandoned after 20 years of disappointments by technicians from Vietnam. The firm arrived in Cuba with an initial investment of 21 million dollars at the beginning of 2023, and – although its business is mainly focused on animal feed and livestock – it expanded to the rice sector.
“We will carry out an exchange on the techniques applied in the field, and we will provide technical attention to ensure success,” said a manager, who assured that the company’s intention is to continue later with the usual seed, planting 15,000 hectares throughout the Island from November, when the cold-weather campaign begins. “This harvest, like the previous one, will be donated to the Cuban homeland,” she added.
This Wednesday, Cambodia presented itself as another partner for Cuba in the matter of rice. Both countries signed a memorandum of understanding for the experiment of planting short-cycle varieties of the grain.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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