China supports upgrading of Cuba's induction cooker

HAVANA, June 9 (Xinhua) -- Elaine Cabrera, a 55-year-old banking worker from Havana's Arroyo Naranjo district, can better prepare meals after buying an induction cooker in an electronics store.

"Cooking is now different," Cabrera told Xinhua while preparing dinner in her kitchen, saying that her daily routine has changed for the better as time saved. "Things are getting easier."

Like her, thousands of people nationwide have benefited from a state funded program aiming to provide citizens with energy saving cookers amid the intensification of the six-decade U.S. embargo on the island.

The majority of induction cookers used by Cubans have been manufactured at Camilo Cienfuegos electronics company, located on the edge of the country's capital of Havana.

Components used in the production process were imported from China, which is the island's largest trading partner.

"We have acquired high-quality components from China," Yirta Zayta, business director of the company, told Xinhua. "The cooperation between Cuba and China in the field of technology has been very positive."

According to her, the electronics company's workers have received training from Chinese experts and technicians, those who have visited the Caribbean nation over the past few years.

The new induction cookers save 30 percent more energy than those traditionally used by Cubans, the director added.

So far, the company has already manufactured 5,000 of the 130,000 induction cookers expected to be produced in a four-year period.

It comes as Cuba continues to work on the replacement of old thermoelectric plants by new electricity generators, and on the import of energy saving electronic appliances in keeping with guidelines promoted by the island's energy program.

Cuba uses renewable energy sources and environmentally friendly technologies to produce these induction cookers.