THE boxing promoter Frank Warren knows all about striking when an opponent is on the ropes. Having long admired Cuba’s production line of boxers, he has been considering signing up some of the island’s best fighting prospects while President Fidel Castro is confined to his sick bed.

There is a rich Cuban boxing heritage to tap into. Although professional sport is outlawed in the communist republic, Cuba has produced near legendary boxers such as Teófilo Stevenson and Mario Kindelan, both Olympic gold medallists who were denied the opportunity to fight for world crowns and lucrative purses.

So who can blame Warren, promoter of the biggest names in British boxing — from Frank Bruno to his present protege Amir Khan — for considering a reconnaissance mission to Havana.

And he is not alone in eyeing up the island’s potential that may be up for grabs once the 80-year-old Cuban leader finally throws in the towel.

“I may well go there. It would be a nice holiday anyway,” said Warren when the question was put to him. “We’ve certainly looked at it and we’re interested. I’ve been over to Cuba before and invested a bit of time and money in it.”

There has been a great deal of interest in Cuba since Castro underwent emergency surgery at the end of July and ceded power to his brother Raul.

“We’re getting more interest than we were six months ago, and not just from American companies,” said Teo Babun, a Cuban émigré who is president of a Miami business consultancy that specialises in Cuba.

“We work with big companies that are putting together preliminary strategies so they could operate in Cuba when and if the opportunity emerges.”

Babun’s company has a list of clients that include the cruise group Royal Caribbean, hotel operator Radisson and computer giant Hewlett-Packard.

For decades, Cuba’s main foreign currency earner was sugar; now it is tourism. It generated $2.6 billion (£1.4 billion) last year and the island is expected to attract a record 2.5m visitors this year, a rise of 7.7%.

Paul Charles, of Virgin Atlantic, which opened its flights service to Havana last year, said: “Cuba has gone through a revolution. It’s been amazing. In the year we have been operating, the tourism industry has been transformed. It is almost as if Castro’s legacy will be one of building up a very dynamic economy.”

Ian Benjafield, a spokesman for the holiday company First Choice, said: “We are continuing to expand our Cuba offering. We will increase our flight regularity from every fortnight to every week from Gatwick as of November 2007.”

However, Matthew Pickles, an analyst at Ernst & Young, said some foreign hotel operators with Cuban partners were finding it a challenge to implement five-star levels of service.

Inevitably, as a result of the island’s history under the former president Fulgencio Batista (ousted in 1959), gambling groups are hinting that they are preparing to take a bet on post-Castro Cuba. These include MGM Mirage of Las Vegas and Ladbrokes, its British rival.

“We will definitely keep a close eye on it,” said Ciaran O’Brien, a spokesman for Ladbrokes. “I imagine that, if there was a regime change, that would present an opportunity for non-American companies.”

Up to a point. There are those who believe that gambling would be the last sector to benefit from any liberalisation. Sol Kerzner, the South African gambling and hotel tycoon, was forced to withdraw from the island last year. His company, One & Only, stopped managing Havana’s new Saratoga hotel amid speculation that the Cuban government had refused to pay its fees.

There are many cautionary tales concerning the island’s communist bureaucracy.

“If you invest in Cuba you pay the wages for your staff to the government,” reported one foreign investor, who did not want to be named. “You then get given your employees. They are chosen by officials who put their family members into the jobs. The nepotism there is ridiculous and the only way to get loyalty from your staff is to bung them money under the table.

“There are a lot of people on the take. There is a saying in Cuba that ‘everybody is too busy making a living to do their job’.”

There are other major hurdles to clear too, not least for American businesses.

For a start, there is the Helms-Burton Act, a 1996 law that toughened the American embargo of Cuba, and specifically precludes the United States from recognising a transitional government headed by Raul Castro.

Many American companies and individuals also have claims on assets that were expropriated by the Cuban government after the 1959 revolution. There are 5,911 outstanding that could be worth an estimated $7 billion (£3.7 billion) today.

“The opportunities will be slow in coming as, first, there need to be bilateral agreements,” said John Kavulich, the founder of the US-Cuba Trade and Economic Council. “The settling of corporate claims, double-taxation agreements, import-duty agreements, all need to be established before trade between America and Cuba can begin.”

Most people think change will come through evolution, not revolution.

“If the embargo were lifted, the economy would pick up, but I don’t think there will be a sudden change,” cautioned Ranald Macdonald, the London restaurateur who has licensed the names of El Floridita and La Bodeguita del Medio — Ernest Hemingway’s legendary drinking haunts in Havana.

“One of Fidel’s legacies is that he has kept Cuban assets for the Cubans.

“There will be some opportunities, but this won’t be buying up Cuba on the cheap.”

Warren, too, has a cautionary experience. His last foray on to the island resulted only in John Duncan’s book, In the Red Corner: A Journey Into Cuban Boxing.

It recounts the author’s attempt in the 1990s to set up a fight between Mike Tyson and the Cuban Olympic heavyweight champion, Felix Savon. Duncan got nowhere, but he did spend an enjoyable year on the Caribbean island . . . at Warren’s expense.