Cuba: Economy Should Grow 10 Percent in 2007

HAVANA, March 22 (Reuters) - Cuba expects its economic growth to slip down a gear this year to around 10 percent but remain among the strongest in the region, a senior government official said on Thursday.

Cuba, which reported growth of 12.5 percent in 2006, is feeling a pinch in its vital tourist industry this year, due in part to a warm European winter and cheaper destinations elsewhere in the Caribbean.

Cuban tour operators have played down any impact on tourism from Fidel Castro's health problems.

"I think that this year the economy will have a growth rate of not less than 10 percent. But certainly, very strong growth," Osvaldo Martinez, the head of parliament's economic commission, told Reuters.

"To sustain growth of 12.5 percent is extremely difficult. Growth of 10 percent would very likely be once more the highest in Latin America, so there is nothing to worry about," he said, after a conference on the United Nations' World Water Day.
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