Narrative
Full Description
Project narrative
In 2014, Hu Huaibang of China Development Bank and René Lazo Fernández of the Cuban National Bank signed a financing agreement detailing a $60 million USD loan for the construction and purchase of equipment and supplies for three biopesticide production plants and a high-security laboratory in Cuba. One of the three production facilities to be run by Labiofam for bio-pesticides and bio-fertilizers is on the outskirts of Villa Clara. Construction started in 2014, and its expected completion was August 2016. However, according to another source, as of 8 February 2019, the project was only 78.3% completed. The other two plants will be located in Granma and Havana. In October 2020, the second of the three plants was finished being built at Villa Clara. The setting up of equipment, however, will not be done until late 2021 due to Coronavirus restrictions. As of December 2023 the project is at 93% completion.
Staff comments
There is some contention over the loan amount and currency: The Granma sources say that the Villa Clara plant will cost over $29 million dollars, and that China is financing the project, but they do not specifically say that the China Development Bank gave the National Bank of Cuba a $29 million loan. The Cuba Standard source says that during Xi Jingping's visit to Havana, China Development Bank chief Hu Huaibang signed an agreement that granted Cuba a loan, amount and conditions undisclosed, for the equipment and construction of three biopesticide plants. Another source claims the loan amount was 60,000,000 euros (See: Empresa Labiofam desarrolla plan de inversiones para fortalecer el sector agropecuario cubano). This project may have been funded by an export buyer's credit loan since the Cuban News Agency source says that the all of the equipment being used in the plant was imported from China using the facility (see "Cuba keeps working..:"); however, AidData was unable to find record of this transaction in any official sources, so the flow type has been left as Loan (excluding debt rescheduling) for now.