Russia and Cuba sign commercial accords
The renewal of a historic relation
Cuba and Russia are advancing to a new stage in economic relations and commercial ties of mutually beneficial cooperation. Russia is offering to the island nation a variety of initiatives of investment that are designed to diversify and increase Cuban exportations.
The Eleventh Meeting of the Business Affairs Committee of Russia and Cuba
On May 17-19, 2023, the Eleventh Meeting of the Business Affairs Committee of Russia and Cuba met in the historic Hotel Nacional in Havana. The Meeting occurs in a scenario very different from the Tenth, which was held in Moscow in September 2019. Today Cuba confronts the impact of the intensification and strengthening of the U.S. blockade, and Russia faces an economic war that the West desires to give an extraterritorial character. Fifty-two Russian and 106 Cuban companies participated in the 2023 meeting.
Bilateral commerce between Russia and Cuba reached 452 million dollars in 2022. Russian exportations tripled in 2022 from the previous year, and they have grown nine times in only the first four months of 2023. However, Cuban exportations to Russia have declined. The reduction in Cuban exportations is a consequence of its declining capacity to produce goods under the growing impact of the intensification of the U.S. blockade, which since the Trump administration has included the blocking of commercial and financial transactions with Cuba by companies and banks in third countries, using the absurd inclusion of Cuba on a spurious list of countries that sponsor terrorism. Cuba’s Vice-Prime Minister and Minister of International Commerce and Foreign Investment, Ricardo Cabrisas, declared that Cuba is passing through one of the most difficult moments in the sixty-four years of the Revolution, because of the hostility without precedent of the United States as part of an economic war.
To reverse this situation and to stimulate economic recovery, the Russia-Cuba Business Affairs Committee has created ten work groups seeking concrete steps to strengthen cooperation and identify areas of possible investments. The president of the Cuban Chamber of Commerce, Antonio Carricante Corona, observed that it is not only a matter of analyzing possibilities for supplying products, but also seeking to develop associations for domestic industrial production. Vice-Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas explained that it necessary to increase and diversify Cuban exportations to Russia, not only traditional products like crustaceans, coffee, and tobacco, but also biotechnological products and tourist and health services, which would require the elevation of the level of Russian capital in the island.
Boris Titov, head of the Russian side of the Business Affairs Committee, observed that there are significant changes occurring in the Cuban economy today, as a result of the application of innovations already applied in Russia, such as the creation of a platform for small businesses that simplifies the process of regulation. He pointed out also that there are three projects ready to be put into practice for the production of sugar, utilizing the long-term renting of land. He considers it necessary to reestablish the commercialization in the Russian market of Cuban products like sugar as well as especially elaborated juices and fruits, which presently is in development.
Titov foresees the supplying of the Cuban retail market with Russian products, as is indicated by the Russia-Cuba Commercial House project, which will permit Cuban consumers to access merchandise at very good prices through the newly forming joint venture company Rusmarket. And he believes that it will be necessary to create mixed Russian-Cuban banks as the Cuban small business sector grows, in order to give small companies backing for their undertakings.
Titov made reference to projects that are analyzing the possibility of creating a permanent merchant marine for the transportation of products between the two countries, using small container ships that Cuba possesses. This would be a very positive step, since it would circumvent the U.S. practice of blocking shipping companies in third countries from delivering to Cuba, and it would avoid the escalating costs of international shipping prices.
During the closing of the Eleventh Meeting of the Business Affairs Committee, eight documents were signed. Among them were a memorandum of cooperation in the field of Artificial Intelligence, a contract for the supplying of wheat to Cuba, and an agreement for the development of the joint-venture company Rusmarket.
The intergovernmental commission for economic and scientific cooperation
The twentieth session of the intergovernmental Russia-Cuba commission for economic-commercial and scientific-technical cooperation was held on May 18, which sought to consolidate the strategic ties between the two countries. The commission was co-presided by Russian Vice Prime Minister Dmitri Chernyshenko and Cuban Vice-Prime Minister Ricardo Cabrisas. Chernyshenko spoke of Russia´s interest in reinforcing strategic cooperation with a crucial partner in the Caribbean. Various agreements of cooperation were signed in areas such as phytosanitary control, customs services, construction, sugar production, wheat, energy, and sport.
In their interventions as the session, Cabrisas stressed that there is now attention to the development of tourism and the post-Covid recuperation of the flow of Russian tourists. Chernyshenko noted that the Russian airline company Rossia is substantially increasing regular commercial and charter flights connecting the two countries beginning at the end of May.
Chernyshenko also discussed the intention to modernize with Russian technology the Cuban steel factory Antillana de Acero. With these Russian investments, the Cuban factory will be able to significantly increase the tonnage of steel that Cuba produces per year. Russia also will work with Cuba in the modernization of Cuban sugar processing plants.
Cabrisas considers it necessary to increase the potential for the development of Cuban biotechnology through association with the Eurasian Economic Union, in which Cuba participates as an observer. He noted that Cuba could be able to serve as a bridge between Eurasia and the Latin American and Caribbean region. Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero will participate in the Council of the Eurasian Economic Union to be held in the Russian city of Sochi from June 7 to 9, 2023. The European Economic Union was formed in 2014, and it includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia. In addition to Cuba, Moldova and Uzbekistan are observers.
Conclusion
In my May 19, 2023, commentary, I reviewed the emergence of a pluralpolar international order, in which the Non-Aligned Movement has played an important role, in the classic period of the Third World project from 1955 to 1983 and since 2006; and in which China and Cuba have been playing leading and increasingly important roles in the last two decades. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, Russia has reestablished dignity in its foreign policy, and it has been increasingly participating in the emergence of an alternative, pluripolar international order. Russia’s involvement in this alternative process is important, because of the large size and relatively advanced character of its economy, the capacity of which is made evident by the agreements that Russia now signs with Cuba.
China and Cuba
The movement of Russia toward cooperation with the construction of a multipolar world order has accelerated as a result of the NATO war against Russia. This Western imperialist war is justified with the pretext of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine, which is a justifiable response to NATO expansionism as well as to Western interference in the political affairs of Ukraine, which has led to violence directed against Ukrainian citizens and residents of Russian ethnicity. Links to several commentaries on the Russian special military operation in Ukraine can be found in the section, “The Russian military operation in Ukraine,” in the Thematic Index.
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