FAO implements 36 joint projects in Cuba: official

About 36 joint projects totaling 3.7 million U.S. dollars to support food security in the country are under implementation by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Cuban authorities, FAO representative Marcio Porto said Friday.

Porto made the statements in a press conference marking the World Food Day, saying that his agency supported the strategies of the Cuban government to prevent anemia and to diversify food production.

He said that in the past 50 years the FAO had developed almost 200 projects in Cuba, with a valuation of some 60 million dollars, he said.

Meanwhile, Joseph A. Quintero, official from Cuba's foreign trade and investment department, stressed the Cuba-FAO collaboration was launched at a time when Cuban leader Raul Castro called for increasing food production as a matter of "national security."

Cuba spends 1.5 billion dollars annually to import food.

Source:Xinhua