The Chamber of Commerce and Industry Canada-Cuba (CCICC), established in 2015, is a non-profit organization dedicated to helping Canadian companies doing business or wanting to do business with the Republic of Cuba. Our head office is in Quebec and we currently have more than 130 members based in Quebec, Ontario, Alberta and New Brunswick.
These member companies come from several sectors, including engineering and construction, transportation, energy and agri-food. Our understanding of the reality of the Cuban market places us in an ideal position to identify opportunities and business issues. To this end, the CCICC has already participated in the organization of several events, both in Canada and in Cuba, in economic development and support of international trade.
In particular, the CCICC participated in the organization of the trade mission accompanying the Prime Minister of Quebec, Mr. Philippe Couillard. During this visit, more than 40 Quebec companies participated in conferences and bilateral meetings with Cuban companies.
The CCICC also organized several Cuban trade missions to Canada. In collaboration with the Quebec Ministry of the Economy, Science and Innovation we carried out in 2017 two missions, one in the energy sector in February, organized in collaboration with AQPER (Quebec Association of Renewable Energy Producers) and one in the transport sector in April.
Every mission is an opportunity for Canadian companies to meet with the representative of Cuban companies. For example during the energy mission about 20 companies met with the delegation lead by Raúl Felipe Pérez De Prado General Manager Oil and Gas of the Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines, and about 15 companies met with the representatives of 97 the Chamber of Commerce of cuba in private meetings. This allowed 35 companies to present their projects and have their questions answered directly, while creating relationships with representative of the energy sector. For the mission in the transport industry, it’s more than 30 companies that had the opportunity to meet the delegation lead by Naima Acosta Alfonzo, Vice Minister of the cuban Ministry of Transport. We focused on demonstrating to the Cuban delegations all the variety and efficiency of canadian companies, while giving to these companies a better vision and understanding on the various opportunities in Cuba.
The CCICC also participated in the mission of the tourism sector in May 2017 in collaboration with the ITHQ (Quebec Hotel and Tourism Institute), the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, and the Quebec Ministry of the Economy, Science and Innovation.
These different missions relied on the participation of Canadian institutions like EDC, CCC and World Affairs Canada and also on the support of the Canadian Embassy in Havana.
Lately we participated to the 35th Havana International Fair (FIHAV), the most important commercial fair in Cuba and in the Caribbean. This edition of the FIHAV saw the biggest presence of Canadian companies in several years and also the official representation from several Canadian provinces.
We were able to observe the growing interest of Canadian companies vis-à-vis opportunities in the Cuban market, and conversely we saw the interest of Cuban companies in the capabilities of Canadian companies.
That is the reason why we want to use all this accumulated experience to present to the different financial institutions and to the different level of government what’s lacking to help the Canadian companies grow on the Cuban market in our next commercial mission dedicated to the financial sector.