Havana, Cuba.-Cuban enterprise CUBAEXPORT signed an international selling-buying contract with US company Coabana Trading Llc, for the export of handicraft vegetal carbon made from marabu plants, starting this month.

The signing of such a contract represents the first sale of Cuban goods to the US, said Aurelio Mollineda, director of Cuban foreign trade group GECOMEX, belonging to Cubaexport.

The contract was signed by Cubaexport general director Isabel O’Reilly, on the part of Cuba, and by Scott de Gilbert, representing Coabana Trading LLc, Gilbert LLp and executive director of another enterprise called Reneo Consulting Llc.

‘We are much satisfied by this trade agreement that is going to take Cuban charcoal to the United States, it will be the first effective export of goods from this island to this country and will allow to its population to enjoy a product of excellent quality,’ O’Reilly indicated.

‘This is the first contract, but we hope to continue these relations for many years, not only with the charcoal, but with other items like honeybee and coffee,’ he added.

This initial shipment includes two containers 20 tons each with charcoal, at a price for 420 dollars the ton, higher that we have managed, he added.

For his part Gilbert, who has visited Cuba in the last five years, regarded the agreement as one of importance for the relations between the two nations and meant that its importance goes beyond this initial product – the charcoal – since honey and coffee will be able to join soon.

He added that the document represents another ‘link in the bridge that will connect the links between Cuba and the United States’.

The charcoal of marabou considered between the best of the world for its high caloric and energy power, takes place in handmade stoves of a natural way, using like raw material the residual one of serrated wood and woody residues of the areas of the chopping, therefore it does not constitute a cause of deforestation. The signing of this contract is the first step in the middle of the restrictions that obstruct the bilateral relations, which remain limited by the persistence of the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States to Cuba for more than half a century