HAVANA, Feb 19 (Reuters) - Vice President Carlos Lage said Cuba is now in a position to be more selective on the investment entering the country, and recommended greater government control to ensure that it serves national interests, an official newspaper reported Thursday. Granma, the mouthpiece of Cuba's ruling Communist Party, said Lage spoke of "the need to exert greater control over foreign investment, to avoid deviation from its goals, which sometimes hurts the country".
He made his remarks at a recent meeting to review the performance of the Ministry of Foreign Investment and Economic Cooperation during 1997 and to set goals for 1998-2000.
Lage added that when Cuba first began opening its economy to foreign capital in the early 1990s, the ministry's task was to receive investment offers as they came.
"This leaning has changed, and more and more (the ministry) has to direct its energies to facilitating, promoting and attracting the kind of foreign investment that's needed," he said, cited by Granma.
Diplomats in Havana say they have heard complaints from some foreigners that it has become increasingly difficult to find and secure attractive investment projects in communist-ruled Cuba.
The Cubans have become tougher negotiators and businessmen are encountering some resistance in clinching attractive rates of return or conditions, the diplomats said.
Although raising financing is still a problem in Cuba, the situation has improved.
"Foreign capital is no longer indispensable to guaranteeing resources, or small investments with quick returns aimed at export production or the internal hard-currency market," Lage told Granma.
The Cuban banking sector can increasingly meet these needs, Lage said. He reiterated that the country's priority on foreign investment is still the acquisition of new technology and export markets as well as long-term financing.
Foreign Investment Minister Ibrahim Ferradaz told the meeting that investment deals involving foreign capital so far total 332, 15 of them agreed this year. Ferradaz said 63 investments had been dissolved over the last few years for various reasons.
So far, foreign investment in Cuba has come mostly from Spain, Canada, Italy, France, Britain and Mexico and has been primarily in heavy and light industry, tourism, food, construction and agriculture.
20:07 02-19-98