Russian-Cuban cooperation tested

The president of the National Assembly of Popular Power and the State Council of the Republic of Cuba, They were loophas been in Moscow for almost a week. He was a guest of the Russian Duma for the meetings of the so -called Cooperation Commission between the Russian Legislative and the National Assembly of Popular Power.

The Russian part was headed by VIACHESLAV VOLODIN, President of the State Duma, who invited the Cuban parliamentarians to participate in the International Forum «Great Heritage – Common Future», dedicated to the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patria War.

Lazo held encounters with Dimitri MedveedChief of the Russia Unida official party; Also with the Chancellor SERGUEI Lavrovthe president of the Federation Council, Valentina Matvieko and the leader of the communist bench Guennadi Ziugánov. But the most prominent of the meetings was with Dimitri ChernyshenkoVicePrimer Minister of Russia, who remarked the help of Kremlin in the Cuban energy crisis and brought to the table the issue of investments on the island.

Chernyshenko asked Esteban Lazo That it helps to launch as soon as possible Russian investment projects in Cuba, and this is titled by the Russian official press in a report on the meeting. The delays and failures in the joint projects between Russia and Cuba, such as the Rusmarket LLC store and the Inter-Rao Energy Agreement, reflect the structural, administrative and political factors that negatively affect the execution of commercial initiatives between the two countries.

In the case of Rusmarket, it is a apparently simple commercial cooperation project, whose inauguration – originally scheduled for March 2024 – has been postponed a full year. This delay not only shows the lack of operational capacity, but also the logistics, customs and regulatory difficulties faced by foreign investments (including Russians) in Cuba.

To this is added the low purchasing power of the Cuban consumer, which weakens the commercial attraction of the local market, as well as the bureaucracy that slows the opening licenses. The situation is aggravated by the paralysis of the Shopping Center projected in the old Yumurí store, in Centro Habana, which is still not realized despite having been announced as a symbol of the new stage of economic collaboration.

For its part, the energy project with the Inter-Rao company, signed in 2016, represents a non-compliance with the country’s electrical infrastructure. The installation of four 200 megawatt electricity generation units in the Máximo Gómez thermoelectric plants and this Havana never went from paper. The lack of sustained financing and the constant political fluctuations have blocked any real advance. To this are added the technical problems and the absence of a stable logistics chain that allows importing equipment and materials regularly. Cuba, on the other hand, has lacked financial resources and institutional stability to guarantee a reliable execution environment.

Both cases illustrate how bilateral agreements, however ambitious that they are in their initial design, fail when they are not supported by efficient administrative structures, legal security and realistic vision of mutual capacities. More than simple delays, these projects symbolize the gap between diplomatic speeches and the concrete viability of Russian-Cuban cooperation in the current context.

This week is expected to hold the XXII Meeting of the Russian-Cuban Intergovernmental Commission for Commercial, Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, in Havana, and Chernyshenko has been the sent from Moscow to the event on previous occasions.