“China is not Cuba’s sugar daddy,”

[El Presidente]

 

China is not Cuba’s sugar daddy

 

It is the only communist nation in the Americas, was the first in the western hemisphere to recognise the People’s Republic of China and is described by Beijing as “good brother, good comrade, good friend”. But despite their shared political legacy — and what Washington says is a history of Chinese spying activity from Cuba — the island’s economic collapse has hurt commercial ties with China just as Beijing’s strategic rivalry intensifies with the Caribbean island’s arch-enemy, the US. Chinese trade with Latin America has grown more than tenfold over the past two decades and continues to surge: China has become the second-largest trading partner for the region, after the US. But the import of Chinese goods to Cuba fell from $1.7bn in 2017 to $1.1bn in 2022, the last year for which Cuban data is available. The two countries do not release data on Chinese investment in Cuba, but Cuban economist Omar Everleny said it amounted to a “laughably small” proportion of the roughly $160bn Beijing invested in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2005 and 2020. Miguel Diáz-Canel, now Cuba’s president, meets Chinese president Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in 2013 © Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images Chinese companies involved with state-backed deals were owed large sums by the Cuban state, said people briefed on the debts. Major Chinese companies such as Huawei and Yutong “are owed hundreds of millions of dollars each”, said an overseas businessperson who trades with the island. Scant raw materials and an unproductive economy leave the island with little to export to China, while imports have diminished in recent years as hardened US sanctions severely aggravated Havana’s chronic late-payment problems and dried-up credit lines. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, sugar production on the island — once a critical industry — has plummeted to its lowest levels in more than a century: there is barely enough sugar to cover domestic requirements. That has resulted in the scrapping of a long-standing agreement to export an annual 400,000 tonnes of sugar to China.

CONTINUED

[Lamboinee]

Great news! One candidate for US Senate has a plan to fix all of this.....just gotta "break you some of dat china!" 

https://youtu.be/4YCw15PHHLQ?feature=shared

[NSXCIGAR]

On 10/14/2024 at 12:41 PM, El Presidente said:

but Cuban economist Omar Everleny said it amounted to a “laughably small” proportion of the roughly $160bn Beijing invested in Latin America and the Caribbean between 2005 and 2020.

Yeah, but China actually gets something for their money in the other countries! 

[ha_banos]

Wonder how the 'consortium of Asian investors' are seeing their 50% stake in Habanos panning out for the future? Given the electricity issues across the country right now. With little commentary showing any confidence, apart from Diaz-Canel. All non-essential work is stopped at the moment. At least until Thursday. So what does the future hold?