Dubai-based DP World has agreed to do a feasibility study to build a US$250 million container terminal in Mariel, Havana, that would start operating in 2012.
A deal is in the works. It is moving forward and various agreements are signed.
DP World became the world's third-largest container port business last year when it bought Britain's Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation.
But it was forced to sell P&O's US assets when the Bush administration came under fire for allowing an Arab-owned company to control US ports.
Critics said that the deal involving the ports of New York City, Newark, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Miami and New Orleans posed a threat to US national security.
P&O had planned for several years to rebuild Mariel port, 50 km west of Havana on the north coast of the Caribbean island, and turn it into a modern container port.
The port of Mariel was the site of a massive boatlift in 1980, when a flotilla of vessels from Florida picked up 125,000 Cubans wanting to leave the Communist-run island.
Its strategic proximity to the United States makes Mariel an attractive investment looking ahead to a time when Cuba is no longer under a US trade embargo, given limited port capacity in the United States.
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