HAVANA -- (EFE) -- Regino Boti Leon, appointed by Cuban President Fidel
Castro as his first economy minister after the triumph of the revolution in 1959,
died Saturday night in Havana of a heart attack.

Boti, son of the poet of the same name, will be buried Sunday in Guantanamo,
where he was born April 26, 1923.

After receiving law and economics degrees from Harvard University in the United
States and the University of Havana, Boti joined the group that founded the United
Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, Juventud Rebelde newspaper
reported Sunday.

In 1956, he founded Cuba's first school of economics.

It was also the year that Boti contacted Castro in Mexico and told him he
supported his revolutionary cause.

For the past 20 years, Boti had worked for Corporacion CIMEX, first as vice
president and later as consultant to the president.

Boti was the first recipient of the National Economy Award in January 1998.