More than 150 Spanish companies, mostly small and medium-sized, accumulate a joint debt of about 255 million euros from the Cuban Government and are demanding extraordinary financial support mechanisms from the Spanish Executive.
Most of this debt corresponds to maturities registered between 2017 and 2019 and affects companies that export basic products such as food, components for vaccines, personal hygiene items or fertilizers, as explained to EFE a spokesperson for the Platform of Those Affected by Non-Payments of the Government of Cuba, which brings together a majority of these companies.
According to the annual survey carried out by ICEX Spain Export and Investmentthe debt has been reduced from the 284 million euros recorded in 2023, a decrease that the platform, articulated through the Foment del Treball employer association, attributes mainly to the closure of some of the affected companies.
Added to these non-payments is the existence of more than 23 million euros in funds retained in Cuba and nearly 40 million in dividends blocked in accounts of foreign companies in Cuban banks that cannot be transferred outside the country, according to the report, to which it has had access. EFE.
The document specifies that these funds are not counted as debt, although in practice the blockade means the impossibility of disposing of that capital, which raises the committed economic value to about 318 million euros.
The platform assures that, despite the contacts maintained with different organizations, it has not found an interlocutor within the Cuban Government to try to solve the situation. According to the spokesperson, the non-payments have already had business consequences, with various companies closed or in bankruptcy proceedings.
Micro and small businesses
Medium-sized companies bear the highest average debt, slightly above 2 million euros, while the lowest average debt corresponds to microenterprises, with about 0.85 million.
19% of the participants in the survey have a debt greater than their turnover for the last year, a group that accounts for 37% of the total liabilities.
The autonomous communities where the largest number of creditors reside are Catalonia (32%), the Community of Madrid (26%) and the Basque Country (15%).
According to data from the Economic and Commercial Office corresponding to 2022, 83% of creditor companies then maintained their activity, while 15% had already ceased operations. Microenterprises accounted for 43% of the debt; small ones, 30%; and the medium ones, 21%.
Credit lines
Those affected maintain that Spain agreed in 2016 on a debt conversion program with Cuba, endowed with 375 million euros, whose resources, according to the platform, have not been used.
World2Fly cancels its second weekly Madrid-Havana flight for three and a half months
These programs allow sovereign liabilities to be transformed into funds intended to finance business investments in the debtor country, instead of requiring their repayment in cash.
The platform demands that these resources be mobilized to improve the situation of the affected companies or, failing that, that special lines of credit be enabled.
Those affected emphasize that many of the affected companies have had to pay taxes in Spain for benefits that they ultimately did not collect.
“Corporate tax has been paid in Spain,” said the spokesperson for the group, which has requested compensation measures similar to those activated during the coronavirus pandemic.
