The villages of La Boca, Henequen, Mojica, Quiebra Hacha, and Cabañas are the major settlements composing the municipality of Mariel.

Following an agreement reached in 2009 between the governments of Brazil and Cuba, the Brazilian engineering firm Grupo Odebrecht built a new port, including a major container terminal, in partnership with the Cuban company "Zona de Desarrollo Integral de Mariel", a subsidiary of the Cuban military controlled Almacenes Universal S.A.[3] This project received an agreement from the Brazilian government to subsidize it up to US$800 million, out of which $300 million would have been already appropriated.

[3] Various Cuban and international media (such as Reuters) report the future Port of Mariel would be designed to have an initial 700 metres (770 yards) of berth length, enabling it to receive simultaneously two large ocean vessels.

These developments should enable Mariel to accommodate the very large container ships which will transit from Asia through the Panama Canal once the enlargement of the latter is completed in the summer of 2014.

Mariel is ideally situated to handle U.S. cargoes when the American trade embargo is eventually lifted, and will receive U.S. food exports already flowing into the country under a 2000 amendment to the US sanctions.

[8]: 159  Foreign investors in the zone must contribute 0.5% of their income to the SDZ development and maintenance fund and pay a 1% sales and service tax for local transactions.