Havana Club to bottle rum in India
Posted: Thu May 15, 2008 2:42 pm
Read all about it in the frontpage.The Telegraph wrote:New Delhi, May 10: Havana Club rum and the Havana cigar have long been the bridge between revolutionary fervour and gentlemanly refinement. Now they are going to drive contact between India and Cuba.
Cuba’s post-Fidel Castro government wants the Havana Club rum bottled in India for the first time, and is sending a team to talk about it — perhaps over a few bottles of the liquid. If the deal is done, Indians can hope for cheaper Cuban rum. The 19-member Cuban mission, which arrives on May 17 on an 11-day visit, will also be trying to push India’s import of the famed Havana cigar, which at well over Rs 1,000 a stick is becoming a craze in Indian high society.
Although business is high on the agenda of the team — headed by the deputy minister for foreign trade, Eduardo Escandell Amador — no memorandum of understanding is likely to be signed with the Indian government. Amador will be calling on commerce minister Kamal Nath, agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and junior foreign minister Anand Sharma, but it’s the Indian private sector he is interested in.
