President begins energy-led visits to Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and China 

21st November 2022

President Díaz-Canel has begun a ten-day intense programme of visits to Algeria, Russia, Turkey, and China, during which he is expected to discuss with his counterparts, Cuba’s problems with power generation, its need to develop new trade mechanisms, and the economic challenges the country faces.

In an indication of the significance of the visit, he is being accompanied by a high-level delegation consisting of Vice Prime Ministers, Ricardo Cabrisas and Alejandro Gil; the Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez; the Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca; the new Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy; and the Minister of Public Health, José Angel Portal. The group includes Díaz-Canel’s wife, Lis Cuesta.

Before departing, Cuba’s President wrote on Twitter: “A brief but intense journey awaits us, visiting friends, opening roads, managing outlets for our besieged economy” noting also that during his  tour he would “address essential issues for our country, fundamentally related to the electrical energy sector.”

His programme, he wrote, “responds to the political and economic priorities of Cuba” as well as to the efforts to alleviate the effects of a post-pandemic crisis, which in Cuba’s case, he said, “is exacerbated by the effects of the blockade of the United States.”

Indicating that the visits have both political and economic objectives, he said: “we will be working intensely to strengthen economic and political ties” to enable the continued development of Cuba, and to build a “horizon of well-being.”

Early reports from his first call in Algeria indicate that its government has agreed to resume the supply of oil and gas, restructure its debt with Cuba, and deepen the two nations’ already close cooperation in areas from agriculture to health.

Speaking to the media, Algeria’s President, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, said that his country  would offer “sister Cuba a photovoltaic power plant as well as re-establishing the supply of hydrocarbons, so that Cuba can reactivate the plants and combat current power outages.”

President Tebboune also noted that both governments had agreed to cooperate on issues including the production of medicines and the creation of joint ventures to manufacture vaccines against some African and non-African diseases.

At the beginning of 2023, he said, a session of the two country’s Mixed Commission involving a group of 150 businesspeople and officials will be held in Havana to examine investment possibilities.

In his remarks, Tebboune also spoke about the  values that both Cuba and Algeria share from the past and present, and their willingness to build the future together. In this context, he said, it had been agreed to “relieve a little the Cuban economic context, cancelling the debt servicing and postponing its repayment for another time”.  Algeria’s President also indicated exchanges would be developed in other commercial areas and in higher education.

Cuban reporting quoted Díaz-Canel as saying that in meetings in Algeria important areas for collaboration had been identified, with discussions centred on issues that “show mutual benefit.” “Above all,” he said, this means “for our country an important support that demonstrates the understanding that the Algerian government has towards our situation.”

Cuba’s President said that the areas identified as “the most promising for collaboration,” include “health; energy; renewable sources; the medical-pharmaceutical industry; and cultural, educational, scientific-technological exchange.”

Speaking to the media in Algiers, Díaz-Canel highlighted the possibility of Algeria undertaking joint programmes in sugar production and being willing to evaluate, “a possibility, a way to renegotiate or restructure the debt that Cuba has with Algeria.”

The two nations have had close relations since Algeria achieved independence in 1962, as well as through the Non-Aligned Movement and energy supply, with large numbers of Cuban medical professionals working in Algeria in various fields of health care. Díaz-Canel is due to meet President Putin in the coming week (See Russia below). Further details of what are the highest-level international visits undertaken by Cuba since November 2018 will appear in the next issue of Cuba Briefing.

Photo by Roland Larsson

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