CUBA NEWS WEEK OF FEBRUARY 16, 2020
Russia and Cuba signed several treaties of cooperation and commercial deals during the past week in Moscow, and Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to visit Cuba in 2020.
Long gas lines and no gas lines at all have returned to the island. With only government owned gas stations allowed to operate on the island since 1961, the government isn’t able to buy gasoline or diesel fuel on international markets, and gas stations are either completely empty because they have no fuel, or the lines of vehicles stretch for blocks with drivers anxious to fill their tanks.
Reuters has reported this week that Cuba defaulted on its loan repayments to the Paris Club.
The Cuban communist party that promised sixty years ago to elevate the standard of living and create a prosperous and developed economy, is in 2020 celebrating the production and export of wood charcoal. Over sixty years ago the production of sugar cane was described as a vestige of a colonial economy by the Cuban communist party leadership, and now this same leadership is touting the production of twenty-two thousand tons of wood charcoal in 2019. The value of the charcoal that was exported last year is reportedly seven million dollars, and it is one of the island’s main exports. Amazing!
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