Horace Clemmons and Saul Berenthal of Alabama are about to become the first American factory owners in Cuba since the country's revolution more than a half-century ago. Clemmons and Berenthal planned to build a $5 to $10 million factory that will make small tractors and other heavy equipment for private Cuban farmers.

The Treasury Department just notified the pair they'd been approved to build a plant "in a special economic zone started by the Cuban government to attract foreign investment," the AP reports. It's the first such permission to be granted since President Obama normalized relations with Cuba. The factory will mark the first major American investment there since before the 1959 revolution in which Fidel Castro seized power.

Because of the economic situation in Cuba, many farmers there have had to get creative and figure out ways to keep their aging tractors and equipment running. This new factory, the Oggun tractor plant, is meant to build a 25-hp tractor that's easy to maintain and costs less than $10,000, its backers say. Berenthal is a Cuban-born software engineer who worked with Clemmons at IBM. The pair say they have enough cash to hit the ground building as soon as all the paperwork is finalized.

Read plenty more about this from the Associated Press.

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