Cuba

An article in the Economist magazine estimated Cuba's growth to be 3% in 2004. This growth is despite the Bush administration's attempts to "strangle" communism in Cuba by dually strengthening 1) the current economic embargo and 2) travel restrictions for students and Cuban-Americans to the island nation.

The growth was attributed to growing political/economic ties to Venezuela (oil at a special price in return for political support) and China (foreign investment in return for Cuba's natural resources), tourism and the discovery of a new oilfield containing an estimated 100 m barrels of oil off the Cuban coast.