The President of the Xunta of Galicia, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, will be traveling to Havana this Wednesday for an official visit that is part of the agenda on diplomatic trade to seek business opportunities with the Galician government.
The Xunta announced last May that Feijoo visit the island to try to capture commercial opportunities to meet with Galicia and Galician community amounting to 40,000 people , after numerous requests from Cubans of Spanish descent who claimed citizenship of their parents and grandparents.
Cuba's ambassador in Spain, Eugenio Martinez, said Monday that the Cuban government is interested in the Galician dairy industry, which would provide the island a boost of oxygen to overcome their decline in recent years.
"With dairy products, we may have something," Martinez admitted in an interview to Radio Galega, where he expressed a possible interest on behalf of Galician companies in the Mariel Special Zone Development .
Feijoo's official agenda in Cuba will begin Thursday, with cultural and economic issues meetings with members of the Cuban government and associations of Galician emigrants.
Feijoo will be the third president of the Xunta traveling to Cuba. Conservative Manuel Fraga visited the island in 1989 and 1991 and socialist Emilio Perez Touriño in 2007. Among the cultural activities on his agenda, Feijoo intends to present the book "Manuel Fraga, a Galician Cuban. Fidel Castro, a Cuban Galician " whose author, Miguel Angel Alvelo Céspedes is of Cuban origin.
"Yes, there will be a presentation at the Galician Center of Havana and for me, it will be a kind of reunion. In that place I met Manuel Fraga on November 1, 1998, after having traveled 500 kilometers from the province of Camagüey to see this great figure in Spanish politics," Alvelo said in an interview with the newspaper, La Razon.
Alvelo, who travel to Cuba as a member of the delegation of the Xunta, said that his book is a cultural and sociological story that stays out of criticizing the Castro regime.
"The Galician president has been working hard to make this visit a success and , in my view, it would be a shame to try to tarnish that, because its focus is the Galician people," Alvelo said. "As a simple investigator, I remain apart from political currents. My thing is writing stories and not give opinions about political issues," he added.
Other person returning for the second time is singer Luis Emilio Batallán, who will play in Cuba to represent Galician music and folklore. On Thursday, December 5th, he will be performing at the Galician Center of Havana with the Cuban and Spanish authorities present.
On Saturday of that week, Batallán will perform at the Residence of the Embassy of Spain in Cuba. More than three decades ago, his album "Ahi ven o maio," became the biggest selling album in the history of music in Galicia. Since then he has been on the stage and is known for his ability to put to music poems by major figures of Galician literature such as Rosalía de Castro , Uxío Novoneyra, Celso Emilio Ferreiro and Manuel Antonio among others.
