The State group recently opened a company in the Chinese province of Hebei

14ymedio, Havana, 12 July 2024 –After 10 months of “connection,” the state group BioCubaFarma established a company with 100% Cuban capital in the city of Shijiazhuang, in the Chinese province of Hebei. This Monday, the company, with a fund of $500,000, completed its registration and is ready to start its operations, ranging from the import and export of pharmaceutical products to consulting services.
For the Chinese press, which released the news this Thursday of the definitive settlement of the Cuban corporation in the High Technology Zone of Shijiazhuang, the company represents one more foreign investment among many. For the Cuban side, on the other hand, it is an important step in the expansion of its medical-pharmaceutical activities and an opportunity to form other agreements with China that are beneficial for the Island.
According to the online media “Sina,” it is expected that in the near future BioCubaFarma will establish another center, this time dedicated to biomedicine, which will “further deepen the cooperation” between the two countries.
According to the online media “Sina,” it is expected that in the near future BioCubaFarma will establish another center
The Shijiazhuang High Technology Zone also has a special interest in the establishment of the Cuban business group in the region, and during the months of accommodation, there were several exchanges between those responsible for the area and the Cubans. The representative of BioCubaFarma in Beijing, Su Li, in addition to several Cuban technicians and specialists and members of the Embassy of the Island in that country, were invited on a tour of the area.
The Chinese representative also visited Cuba last August on a tour that included the Cuban Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the AICA laboratories – which manufactured the Abdala vaccine against COVID-19 – and a working meeting with Mayda Mauri Pérez, who assumed the presidency of BioCubaFarma last February.
The expansion into China of the conglomerate, which produces 50% of the Island’s pharmaceutical products, and the countless agreements it has signed in recent months with Russian companies seem to be part of a plan of expansion and search for State autonomy in the sector, about which the Government gave clues this Tuesday in the Cuadrando la Caja [Squaring the Box] TV program.
In the program, Antonio Vallín, director of AICA, addressed the “tortuous process” of asking for permits from the State every time a step is taken or a foreign investment is approved. Many times, he admitted, investors despair and give up on putting their money into a State-owned company because the approval of the leadership has not yet arrived. “The investor doesn’t wait,” the manager warned.
The lead in a long section of the program, Vallín had time to present his own economic ideas
The lead in a long section of the program, Vallín had time to present his own economic ideas. “Cuba, with its economy and size and with its few energy and mineral resources, cannot build a self-based economy,” he said. “It has to build an economy where Cuba is a subsystem of a much greater integration with the outside world,” and that is precisely where the two most powerful allies of Havana fit together: Beijing and Moscow.
This Thursday, the Russian innovation center Skolkovo approved the collaboration with BioCubaFarma for five pharmacological projects. According to Prensa Latina, the agency estimates that “the five proposals involve the first innovative molecules of their kind in the world,” and one of them – designed to combat Parkinson’s – has been receiving Russian funding since 2018.
In June, the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) announced that it would deliver, in an initial phase, 11.3 million dollars for BioCubaFarma to develop medicines against geriatric and oncological diseases. The investment is part of the cooperation agreements signed between the RDIF and a consortium made up of the Cuban firm and Russian pharmaceutical companies during the International Economic Forum that was held that month in the Russian city of St. Petersburg.
The general director of the Fund, Kiril Dmitriev, explained at the time that the volume of the investments can be increased to 113 million dollars. He also specified that the RDFI is focused on attracting the best pharmaceutical manufacturers in the world to the Russian market in order to locate the research and production of medicines, replace imports and create its own production base.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.