Madrid Spain.- The Cuban government advocated this Thursday to speed up the procedures for the use of Russian MIR bank cards on the island.
During the Forum Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF, for its acronym in English), which began this Wednesday and will run until next Saturday, the general director of Systems, Technologies and Development of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Alberto Quiñones, said: “We are working now for the acceptance of MIR cards in our country.”
“I am confident that in the coming weeks the necessary steps will be taken so that the MIR payment system begins to function in Cuba before the end of the year,” Quiñones added, quoted by the Spanish news agency EFE.
For his part, the president of the Central Bank of Venezuela, Calixto José Ortega Sánchez, also supported the implementation of this system in his country.
“We can no longer delay it any longer, because the Western monopoly would win, which can be used as a weapon when the time comes,” insisted the headline.
The governments of Cuba and Venezuela, with the implementation of the MIR cards, intend to stimulate Russian tourism, since with these they would offer Russian visitors more variants when paying for services.
Mir cards are currently accepted in Turkey, Vietnam, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The MIR card works as an equivalent of the American Visa and MasterCard, whose services were suspended in Russia as part of the sanctions for its attacks on Ukraine.
Last April, the Cuban regime had announced that the MIR cards could begin to work in Cuba.
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