Reuters reports that new measures in U.S.-Cuba relations are fueling invester interest.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Investors in high risk assets are setting their sights on Cuban securities now more than ever given the cheap prices and the overtures made by the U.S. government toward the island.

Since U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to recast U.S.-Cuba ties in April, investors in high risk bonds have shown interest in Cuban securities as a means to accessing a market that has been closed to U.S. capital for almost half a century and is ripe for investment.

The extremely illiquid Cuban paper had halved in price to single digits by the end of 2008 when the global economy spiraled down and investors moved their money away from risky markets into safe-haven assets.

Thus, with Cuban assets valued at around 8 cents to the U.S. dollar high-risk investors see the latest U.S.-Cuba policy move as a reason to get into the Cuban securities market.

“The conditions in the U.S., with the arrival of the Obama administration, and in Cuba, with the move to economic reform in the last three years, are driving people to be very interested in the Cuban story,” said Stuart Culverhouse, chief economist at Exotix, a London-based brokerage firm specialized in illiquid bonds and loans of emerging markets.