“They are giving us preferential treatment, the way is paved.” The words of Boris Titov, president of the Cuba-Russia Business Council, at the inauguration of the bilateral business economic forum this Wednesday at the Hotel Nacional in Havana, eloquently illustrate the state of the relationship between the two countries.
As reported by the agency Reutersthe Kremlin advisor assured that the Island has offered Russian businessmen the right to use land for a period of 30 years, an unprecedented concession in the revolutionary regime.
These conditions affect, he explained, “both the long-term lease of land and the duty-free import of agricultural machinery, the granting of the right to transfer earnings in foreign currency, and much more. Of course, we are also waiting for the reduction of the bureaucratic barriers,” he added.
Titov, who has been advising the Cuban authorities on economic matters for months, has also stated, according to Sputnik, that the Díaz-Canel government is willing “to offer more favorable conditions to Russian investors.”
“Cuba is transforming, mastering new rules for the interaction between the State and companies,” he stated at the opening of the meeting.
Thus, for example, they are going to exempt Russian companies from tariffs to import technology and allow them to repatriate their profits to Russia, a privilege that no other foreign businessmen in Cuba enjoy.
“In Soviet times there was a direct port and maritime connection,” he said, and announced that they are analyzing “this possibility with the owners of the Cuban ships” (that is, the State).
In addition, Putin’s advisor expressed that he was considering speeding up transportation between the two countries. “In Soviet times there was a direct port and maritime connection,” he said, and announced that they are analyzing “this possibility with the owners of the Cuban ships” (that is, the State).
On behalf of the Island, Ricardo Cabrisas, Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, told reporters that the economic ties between his country and Moscow are only going to grow. “Nothing and no one can stop it,” the official was quoted as saying by Reuters.
The forum was attended by 52 Russian and 106 Cuban companies, official media indicated.
Sergei Baldin, Russia’s trade representative in Cuba, told the British agency that bilateral trade between the two nations reached 450 million dollars in 2022, triple that of 2021. 90% of this was purchases of petroleum products and soybean oil.
Titov also pointed out, collected the Russian agency Tass, which three russian banks have requested to register branches on the Island.
The distrust that Russia had towards Cuba in the last decades for non-payment of their debts changed completely after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. A few days before, Moscow announced an extension of the payments of Russian credits granted to Havana until 2027.
Since the war began, bilateral meetings have been taking place that specified symbiotic needs: Russia’s for having allies on the planet, after the majority rejection of its actions in Ukraine, and Cuba’s for trying to breathe life into its devastated economy.
Last January, the two agreed to create a Economic Transformation Center with the aim of modifying the island’s economy based on “the development of private companies”, something that numerous NGOs have denounced as an attempt to pass a “model with a nationalized economy” to the scheme “Russian market mobster”.
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