Havana, Cuba.- Cuba participates today with 22 institutions from 13 countries in the Tropic Phase project, seeking to increase skills to handle the Huang Long Bing disease that damage citrus, said an official from this field today.

Cuba joined this international program financed by the European Union through the Tropical Fruit Research Institute, general director of this center Guillermo Almenarez told Prensa Latina.

This project, led by the University of Bologna, Italy, also researches the lethal yellowing of the coconut tree.

According to Almenarez, the Tropic Phase seeks to increase skills about the management of these diseases.

Almenarez said that the Institute also participates in the international cooperation projects Agrocadenas and Agrofrutales, which are carried out in Cuba financed by the United Nations Development Program.

The institute currently implements 40 research projects, 31 of them seek to solve specific business problems related to nutrition, new technologies and farming.

It also carries out nine projects that give solution to problems of science and technology, linked to climate change and resilience to water scarcity.