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China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi is due to begin a week-long visit to Latin America this weekend. His trip takes in Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil. His first stop is Cuba, which has just passed a new law aimed at attracting foreign investment.

Every morning thousands of Cubans head to work on Chinese built buses. China is the island's second largest trading partner after Venezuela providing everything from buses, cars and ships to household electrical goods all on easy credit terms.

China also provides technology and know-how¹ for on shore oil drilling operations. But so far there has been no major Chinese investment here.

Cuba and China may have strong political and ideological² ties but when it comes to investment projects the relationship is strictly³ business.

In 2011, China signed a letter of intent to invest some six billion dollars in modernizing⁴ the oil refinery⁵ at Cienfuegos. It never happened. Now Cuba has passed a new foreign investment law with tax and other incentives⁶.

The aim is to attract foreign companies to a special trade development zone around the recently opened deep-water port at Mariel. It's one of the few in the region which can handle the much larger ships which will come through the expanded Panama Canal.

Hugo Pons, Association of Cuban Economists⁷, said, "China is one of 15 countries which have submitted proposals for the Special Development Zone. It would help Cuba's technological⁸ develo."

According to Chinese press reports, the car manufacturer Geely is considering setting up an assembly plant in Cuba. One additional sweetener in the new foreign investment law is that companies can, for the first time, bring in their own construction workers, something Chinese firms often insist on.