HAVANA: China has donated $100 million to Cuba to assist it live on a crippling financial disaster exacerbated through the coronavirus pandemic, the island country’s Deputy High Minister Alejandro Gil mentioned Saturday. The donation got here as Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel concluded a consult with to China, a part of an extraordinary international commute. Chinese language President Xi Jinping and Diaz-Canel met on Friday and “the be offering arose of a donation of round $100 million through China,” Gil instructed Cuban state tv.
Gil, who could also be Cuba’s economic system minister, mentioned the cash would move towards “priorities” at the island, which has been rocked through its worst financial disaster in 3 many years. Diaz-Canel concluded his consult with to China later Friday and endured on a world excursion designed to achieve beef up for Cuba in renovating {an electrical} device that has failed time and again, inflicting common blackouts. Gil mentioned leaders of the 2 international locations additionally mentioned “the topic of the debt” that Cuba has accumulated with China however didn’t specify the scale of the debt.
“Our president defined the placement that we confront, and there used to be figuring out from China. We’re in quest of mutually applicable formulation for the making plans and restructuring of the money owed,” Gil mentioned. China is Cuba’s 2d greatest industry spouse after Venezuela. Each countries are robust political allies of Cuba. Previous on his commute, Diaz-Canel visited Algeria, the place President Abdelmadjid Tebboune promised to send gas to Cuba, donate a photovoltaic energy plant and cancel hobby on money owed, Gil mentioned. Diaz-Canel’s commute used to be additionally to incorporate stops in Turkey and Russia.
Harmony in opposition to US
In the meantime, Russian chief Vladimir Putin and Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel have offered a united entrance in opposition to their not unusual “enemy” Washington as they slammed Western sanctions. The 2 additionally unveiled a bronze monument to Fidel Castro within the capital Moscow, with Putin praising the Cuban progressive as a “vivid” guy. The Kremlin leader, who has been in quest of to pivot Russia from the West after he despatched troops to Ukraine in February, praised Moscow’s decades-old friendship with Cuba and mentioned the 2 international locations had to ramp up cooperation additional.
“We’ve got at all times hostile quite a lot of forms of restrictions, embargoes, blockades, and so forth,” Putin instructed the Cuban chief on the Kremlin, welcoming that Havana sponsored Moscow at the global enviornment in go back. Diaz-Canel mentioned for his section that the consult with to Moscow had a “profound” which means. “Initially it’s going down as each international locations – Russia and Cuba – are matter to unfair and arbitrary sanctions that proceed, and they’ve a not unusual enemy, the Yankee empire that manipulates a big a part of the arena,” he mentioned within the Kremlin.
Diaz-Canel sponsored Russia in its disagreement with the West, pronouncing Moscow must stand company. Russia’s affect in Cuba waned with the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991 nevertheless it has been making a return. Cuba has been below US sanctions for greater than six many years, whilst Russia has been slapped with extraordinary Western sanctions after Putin introduced an offensive on Ukraine on February 24. Diaz-Canel hopes the consult with to Russia will assist spice up his nation’s suffering power sector in the middle of extended blackouts and gas shortages. – AFP