New York - Companies considering doing business in Cuba will find a country ripe for a modern communications system, lacking U.S. consumer goods like Coke and Pepsi, and craving more hotels, earth-moving equipment and even aluminum cans for beer.

That's the bounty potentially awaiting U.S. corporations as President Barack Obama moves to thaw relations with the Communist country, loosening restrictions on trade and travel. The bad news: Cuba remains a poor country with an inefficient, sometimes corrupt economy that could dash capitalist dreams.

"The key word is potential," said Bill Lane, director of global government affairs at Caterpillar Inc. "Cuba doesn't need to rebuild its infrastructure. It needs to build an infrastructure. Everything that we make in U.S. is needed in Cuba."

Obama's unexpected policy shift is just a first step in allowing U.S. companies to do business in Cuba after a 50-year- long embargo. He would let U.S. businesses export goods such as building materials, farming equipment and communications infrastructure to the island. Ending the embargo totally would require congressional approval.

Easing travel restrictions could aid the cruise and airline industries. U.S. financial institutions will be allowed to open accounts with Cuban banks. The thaw could mean new business for companies as varied as Carnival, Nike and Wal-Mart.

U.S. consumers also were thrown a pleasurable benefit. American visitors to the island can bring back as much as $100 of Cuban cigars, a treasure for those so inclined. The U.S. bans all Cuban tobacco imports now.

Normalizing relations with the island nation about 90 miles from Florida would open a market of about 11 million people - about the same size as a state like Ohio - that have been longing for U.S. products for decades, according to John Kavulich, a senior policy adviser at the U.S.- Cuba Trade and Economic Council.

"What's attracted U.S. companies from before the revolution, through the revolution to today is there's an incredibly high awareness for U.S. brand names," Kavulich said in an interview. That means the cost of entering the market would be lower because not as much marketing is needed, he said.

Coca-Cola Co. would consider re-entering the Cuban market "at the appropriate time and in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations governing U.S. relations with Cuba," Ann Moore, a spokeswoman for Coke, said in an email. Coke sells its beverages in all countries except for Cuba and North Korea.

PepsiCo looks forward "to adding Cuba contingent on business relations becoming normalized," said spokesman Jay Cooney in an email.