The Obama administration has approved the first US factory in Cuba in more than 50 years, allowing a two-man company from Alabama to build a plant to assemble as many as 1,000 tractors a year. Operating as Cleber, the US$5 to US$10 million plant the two partners Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal plan to build is the first significant US business investment on Cuban soil since Fidel Castro took power in 1959. The tractors will be assembled at a new facility in the Port of Mariel Port, about 30 miles west of Havana. Called the Oggun, production of the new tractor is planned to start by the first quarter of 2017. Costing under US$10,000, the two partners believe they can sell hundreds of the simple 25hp tractors a year. Cleber says it will export components from the US for assembly in Cuba for the first three years, but then hopes to be able to manufacture many Oggun parts on the island. The plan is to start with 30 Cuban employees and grow this number to as many as 300 within five years. The company also has permission to make other equipment in Cuba and has plans to produce excavators, backhoes, trench-diggers and forklifts.