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News > Cuba

Cuba: US Blockade Affects Financing of Private Sector Projects

  • Vice President of Banco Metropolitano, Marina Torres García, denounces to the national and foreign press the effects of the blockade on Cuba´s financial and banking sector.

    Vice President of Banco Metropolitano, Marina Torres García, denounces to the national and foreign press the effects of the blockade on Cuba´s financial and banking sector. | Photo: Twitter @MinrexCpi

Published 6 May 2021
Opinion

The 60-year-old economic, financial, and commercial blockade imposed by the U.S against Cuba has but a single aim, to destroy Cuba´s chosen path of development. Over the last six decades, the blockade has brought about a permanent state of economic warfare and inflicted untold suffering on the population.

Access to financing to develop private sector business projects is limited by the impact of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba, said Marina Torres García, vice-president of Banco Metropolitano S.A. (BanMet).

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According to the directive, during a press conference in this capital, the entity serves many entrepreneurs (TCP) and non-agricultural cooperatives. Still, since 2019, financing for these forms of non-state business management decreased by 294, less than 57 percent compared to the previous year.

The BanMet vice-president specified that the same happened with the amounts of credits granted, which declined by 78 million pesos. She also detailed that their collections and bank interests have suffered delays.

Among the reasons, she exposed that the activation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and the implementation of the license denial policy for passenger transport trips, recreational boats, and private aircraft have generated a considerable decrease in tourism to Cuba, which affects the development of self-employed businesses.

The main activities affected by the criminal policy, Torres García commented, include private home rentals, private transport companies, and those linked to food and recreation services, which have all experienced severe cuts to their earnings.

In terms of the repayment of credits granted by the bank for the development of private sector business projects in the capital, she underlined that the figures reflect an increase in payment delinquencies reaching nearly 3.4 million pesos.

Torres Garcia pointed out that the U.S. blockade has had a very negative impact on all sectors of society, with a particular incidence on the general population at large, a situation aggravated by the complex global scenario imposed by the current coronavirus pandemic.

Among the measures imposed by the White House that directly affect the banking and financial sector in the island, the Cuban official highlighted the imposition of fines on companies engaged in trade with Cuba, the elimination of family remittances, and the closure of affiliated offices of banks operating in Cuba. 

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