CNN. February 21, 2000. Web posted at: 7:11 AM EST (1211 GMT)
PARIS -- has renewed a food-for-sugar barter deal with Cuba that will cover 70 percent of the Communist-ruled island's wheat and flour needs, the Finance Ministry said on Monday.
The agreement was worth $180 million, roughly the same as the previous year's deal.
The barter deals were started in the 1990s in response to a U.S. embargo on doing business with Cuba, which has become the third-largest non-EU destination for French wheat after Egypt and Morocco.
In 1998/1999 exported 714,000 tonnes of cereals to Cuba, the ministry said in a statement. Cuba traditionally imports around one million tonnes of wheat per year, according to the International Grains Council.
French traders know their big slice of the Cuban food market could dwindle if Washington were to one day put aside its political opposition to trading with Havana.
Pressure is already mounting from the U.S. farm lobby.
The American Farm Bureau estimated in 1998 that U.S. sales of wheat, corn, soy and other farm products to the island could exceed $500 million annually if the embargo were ended. |