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A number of structural changes in the Cuban economy over the past decade came to pass as a result of the acute crisis that unraveled in the early 1990s. Even though the year 1994 marked the beginning of a slumping Cuban economy, the biggest chunk of the transformations only occurred later on.

The gradual recovery of some of its businesses, the streamlining of others and openness to investment and foreign trade have somewhat rekindled the island nation's cash-strapped economy.

Regardless of counting on Decree Act 50 since 1982 that regulated the creation of joint ventures between Cuban and companies overseas, the big boost in this direction only happened in the mid 1990s when all conditions were finally right to take in alien foreign and technology.

As we speak, there are over 360 international joint ventures, 231 contracts for cooperative partnership and a baker's dozen contracts for manufacturing and service management. Some 50 hotel management deals have been cut and by and large Spain, Canada and Italy have so far grabbed the lion's share of partnerships.

In the same breath, tourism, basic industries, building and non-heavy industries are the sector where most investment money has been channeled into. This flow of investment seeks to step up the country's development and search for new markets for Cuban exports, have access to competitive technology and long-term funding chances.

A highly trained and qualified workforce, adequate infrastructure, political and social stability, regional integration, abundance of natural resources and a safety atmosphere stand for elements that lure foreign investors to do business in Cuba.

TOURISM The leisure industry is by far the fastest-growing sector of the entire Cuban economy with a 19 percent annual average rate in the number of tourists that visited the country between 1995 and 2000, as well as high global efficiency in the business during the course of the past decade.

These numbers are rendered in eightfold more revenues, five times more sunbathers, a walloping 300 percent increase in the amount of rooms and twice as many jobs, let alone the reactivation of the national manufacturing sector that now meets roughly 68 percent of the industry's needs and has created 200,000 new jobs.

Today, Cuba ranks among the Caribbean's top four destinations and some long-term estimates put the stock of hotel rooms in 191,000 accommodations, a figure staggeringly higher than the 40,000 rooms the island nation banks on right now. This sector also provides clear-cut chances for foreign investment in hotel building and the construction of extra-hotel facilities.

Business opportunities in this key sector of Cuba's economy zero in on hotel building in the whole marketing spectrum, focusing chiefly on the island's top priority areas for tourist development: Havana, Varadero, Jardines del Rey, northern Camaguey and Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, the south central coastline and the Canarreos Archipelago.

BIOTECHNOLOGY Recent studies conducted by Associated Consultants S.A. (CONAS, S.A.) reveal there are many other sectors opening a huge window of opportunities for foreign investment in a similar effort to pry into new markets overseas, lay hands on competitive technology and get funding sources.

A case in point is biotechnology, a sector that has nudged the development of Cuba's scientific field over the past four decades. Biotechnology got fired up back in the 1990s with the emergence of a state-of-the-art industry for both making and marketing biotechnological and pharmaceutical products, medical equipment, high-tech diagnostic techniques and equally valuable information technology packages.

In this particular field, such products as the BC vaccine to fight meningitis –the only one of its kind worldwide- cancer treatments, a vaccine to kill the hepatitis B virus and many other products are certainly pushing Cuban sciences to the front-running pack.

Foreign investors could set up shop here by means of partnerships in the development of specific projects, share markets, exert use rights on patents, bankroll projects contained in the joint business portfolio and provide access to new markets abroad.

Business promotion in the sector embraces the creation of joint ventures overseas for making products based on Cuban technological breakthroughs, as well as the opening of international economic partnerships for the joint development of brand-new products.

INFORMATION, SUGAR, POWER GENERATION… As far as information technology is concerned, Cuba has also walked on solid ground by laying the foundations for a skilled workforce capable of speeding up the development of new technologies and drawing in megabuck investments in telecommunications. As a result of this, over two thirds of Cuba's phone lines and dialup systems have been digitalized, faster data transferring networks have been pieced together and fiber optics has reached out to every nook and cranny.

Opportunities here are hitched to the formation of strategic partnerships for making tailor-made software and application packages for industrial operations, as well as for both upgrading and updating existing applications.

Investors also aim at sugarcane byproducts, a sector that provides countless opportunities in power generation based on sugarcane biomass, in the increase of feed grains, the expansion of new products, the brewing of alcohol and beverages, the making of biological fertilizers and planks for the furniture and building industries.

The financing of the sugar industry includes formulas for joint entrepreneurial management and funds for factory parts and raw materials.

The upturning trend toward the assimilation of cutting-edge technology also comprises power generation and oil exploration. In 2002, Cuba produced nearly two thirds of its electrical power requirements by using homemade power sources. That figure should climb to a staggering 90 percent by the end of this year.

In this sense, oil exploration is attracting more looks with each passing day. The country is now checkered in 26 blocks, broken down in 16 on the ground and 10 offshore. There's also an exclusive area fenced off in the Gulf of Mexico, made up of 59 blocks, and in this particular neck of the woods forecasts can't just be any better since both Mexico and the U.S. have drilled major crude deposits in their own blocks before.

These five fields are top on the list of investment possibilities in the country and remain the five sectors where most business opportunities are. However, there are equally luring sectors teeming with potentials such as fabrics, fishing, foodstuffs, farming, heavy machinery, transportation, communications, banking and hydraulic resources.

FOODSTUFFS AND BUILDING In the case of crops and foodstuffs, the top offers the Cuban market has to make are in the harvest and export of citrus fruits and their spin-offs, the processing of exportable medicinal plants and the attainment of improved seeds for a variety of forestry species, especially those hailing exclusively from Cuba.

Now that milk output has staged a comeback, and the growing of rice, bananas and plantains are also bouncing back, there are investment chances galore in this field.

The building industry –penciled in as a sector that's taken off dramatically in recent years- is second best to no one as far as catching the attention of investors is concerned, mainly when it comes to key-in-hand projects for the leisure industry, the construction of recycling plants, limestone processing factories and the making of floor tiles.

KEYS TO INVESTMENT Cuba's legal framework and investment ways are dictated in Act 77 that provides a lawful umbrella for the establishment of joint ventures, international economic partnerships and foreign-capital-only enterprises.

At the same time, Agreement 3827 12/00 allows other businesses and new investment ways through cooperative manufacturing and services, as well as management opportunities in these two fields.

Legal provisions are also based on the Agreements for Reciprocal Investment Promotion and Protection (APPRI is the acronym in Spanish) that have already yielded a grand total of 62 deals with as many as 71 countries, a majority of them from the Americas (34 percent), followed by Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Within the strategy to give foreign investment in Cuba a big leg up, a number of consulting offices have hanged out their shingled on the island nations to legally assist the settlement of foreign partners and their companies.

One of those law firms is Associated Consultants S.A. (CONAN S.A.), eyed by many as the consulting office of choice for whoever wants to pour money into Cuba.

Founded in 1991, CONAN S.A. is charged with providing professional assistance in terms of auditing and juridical consulting, organizational reengineering, marketing, business assessment, management of foreign companies and national enterprises, natural and juridical persons from overseas, international entities and organizations, only to name but a few of its top clients.

In its international outreach, the firm offers joint services to consulting offices and organizations stationed in Spain, France, Canada, the United Kingdom, Panama, Holland, Trinidad & Tobago, Mexico, Puerto Rico and other nations. Another company worth mentioning here is Ernst &Young, based in Spain, the U.K. and Argentina (the firm is indeed headquartered in the South American country).

This consulting company is involved in advertising the development of foreign investment and other issues. One of its major fields of action has to do with ongoing assistance to a clientele of 200 customers from different countries and local economic sectors, including most of the top thirty foreign-capital companies the island nation does business with, nearly two thirds of Cuba's banking entities, almost all major telecommunications and information technology enterprises, all national dealers of basic industries, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, farming and fishing, as well as a handful of international organizations.

BACKING UP THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SECTOR FOR FORTY YEARS The Republic of Cuba's Chamber of Commerce –construed in the light of its responsibilities and working goals- provides unmatchable support to Cuban entrepreneurs and to foreign investors doing business with Cuba or forging trade ties with the island nation.

When the Chamber of Commerce was founded four decades ago in 1963, it was intended to deal with management and registration of trademarks and patents, a task that's currently in the hands of the LEX S.A. Law Firm –attached to the Chamber since 1994.

During its first years around, the firm worked on Cuba's attendance to major fairs and tradeshows worldwide and the organization of other countries' exhibits in its own turf, an indispensable steppingstone to foster trade relationships and exchanges.

From the 1970s on, a new strengthening period teed off. The Chamber of Commerce joined key international institutions involved in trade promotion and several bilateral committees with businesspeople from a number of countries were formed.

Nonetheless, the Chamber of Commerce has focused on stepping up its own development in recent years. As a result of this, its membership had reached a tally of 832 affiliates by the end of 2002.

Its ample outlay embraces now delegations from all of the island nation's territories and geographical areas, and its experience and expertise have led to the creation of some divisions that slot companies in keeping with their professional profiles.

The main objective behind this self-sufficient public organization is to contribute to the economic and trade development of the country, provide support to the corporate sector through its own affiliation system and assist those enterprises –Cuban companies linked to manufacturing and services, as well as joint ventures- that voluntarily adhere to the Chamber of Commerce.

With 40 years of experience under its belt, the institution has chipped in dramatically to boost Cuban exports by giving local companies some wiggle room in an already glutted world market and by fostering entrepreneurial development through a number of plans intended to put Cuban products and trade offices overseas on the map.

Furthermore, the Chamber of Commerce organizes such major events as the Havana International Fair and ExpoCaribe, two undisputed tradeshows linked to the promotion of Cuban products and new exportable items.

A heftier connection between corporate Cuba and markets elsewhere is made possible through the European Center for Entrepreneurial Cooperation with Cuba –headquartered in the Chamber of Commerce- that opens business opportunities between local institutions and their counterparts in Europe.

Closer to the island nation and bonded together by longstanding cultural ties, the Caribbean is a region the Chamber of Commerce keeps a watchful eye on in terms of Cuba's economic relationships with its neighboring countries.

Its array of lawful, information, promotional, technological, professional training and international relations is highly coveted by entrepreneurs from both the island nation and the rest of the world keen to doing business with Cuba.

Four decades later and a long way behind, Cuba's Chamber of Commerce is eyed by corporate people inside and out of the country as an institution capable of advertising trade, businesses and exports.