HAVANA, March 22 (Reuters) - French hotel chain Pansea Hotels and Resorts signed Monday a $52 million investment deal with a Cuban state company to build eight installations for the Caribbean island's booming tourism industry.
Pansea and Cuban tourism firm, Cubanacan, formally inaugurated their joint venture company, Hotelera S.A., at a ceremony in Havana attended by the tourism ministers of both nations, state news media said.
Their first hotel, in Havana, is intended to be ready by 2001, while others are planned for the western town of Vinales, the central town of Trinidad, the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba and the north-eastern beach resort of Santa Lucia.
Locations have not yet been decided for the remaining three hotels among the eight planned, according to a report by state news agency AIN.
The eight small luxury hotels planned by Pansea and Cubanacan will add another 500 rooms' capacity for Cuba's rapidly-expanding tourism trade, which has become a mainstay of the local economy.
Britain's Commonwealth Development Corp (CDC) is Pansea's partner in the venture.
State media gave no more financial details of the joint venture deal.
Cumulative French investment in Cuba is estimated at $100 million -- about the same as Spain, but well below Cuba's leading investor Canada -- of a foreign investment total here of some $2 billion.
19:29 03-22-99
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