Expocuba prepares for Fihav 2022 and new projects.

By rescuing its infrastructure and redesigning its programming, Expocuba can become a great recreational, cultural and events institution that integrates the country’s economic actors in a sustainable way.

This transcended this Saturday in a meeting headed by the member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz, in which the actions to prepare the emblematic space for the Havana International Fair 2022, to be held in November, were evaluated.

During the meeting it was reported that several agencies and specialised forces of the Palco group are carrying out the maintenance of the pavilions that will host the samples of more than 140 Cuban and foreign companies from some 25 countries, which have already confirmed their participation in the business event.

Of the event, which this year is expected to cover more than 12,000 square metres, the Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca Díaz, highlighted the holding of the 5th Investment Forum, in which the latest version of the portfolio of business opportunities in Cuba will be presented.

The director of Expocuba, Lidercy González Miguel, said that the rehabilitation strategy of the infrastructure, badly damaged by the paralysis caused by COVID-19, will allow the facility to be ready to take on the programme of activities of Fihav 2022.

Beyond the fair
Founded on 4 January 1989 by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, Expocuba was conceived as a stage for exhibition, emulation for quality and collaboration among Cuban companies. Today, in the light of the new dynamics of the economy, it can resize its objectives with a greater presence of services and recreational and cultural offerings.

This is the projection of a proposal to resize the entity, presented at the meeting by Jorge Luis Pérez Llerandi, director of the fairs, events and exhibitions organising company of the Palco Group.

The initiative seeks sustainability and diversification of suppliers, sources of financing, exhibition schemes, computerisation of processes and contractual relations with other companies and economic actors.

At the event, which was attended by Deputy Prime Minister Jorge Luis Perdomo Di-Lella, as well as heads of portfolios and representatives of organisations, it was also agreed to draw up a regulation to legally protect Expocuba’s activities and define responsibilities and new competencies.

Marrero Cruz pointed out that the institution currently shows a deterioration in its infrastructure, which requires significant resources to reverse, and insisted on the need to guarantee accessibility to the site by means of sustainable transport routes.

He also emphasised the importance of seeking maintenance alternatives based on innovation and the use of national raw materials and technologies. He valued that Expocuba, beyond the fairs it hosts, can be the setting for thematic exhibitions, important recreational, sporting and cultural events, and be integrated with other nearby institutions such as the Botanical Garden and Lenin Park.

The Prime Minister highlighted the rehabilitation of other urban parks in the capital, as an example of the possibilities of transforming the fairgrounds without renouncing its founding principles.