Ricardo Cabrisas, Cuba’s deputy prime minister and main negotiator of its foreign debt, met in France with Emmanuel Moulin, director-general of the Treasury and president of the Paris Club, an entity with which Havana maintains defaults and from which it could request a new deferment.
The meetings between the two authorities in Paris were reported on this Tuesday by the Cuban Foreign Ministry, which did not offer further details about its content.
Cuba: Ricardo Cabrisas en Francia para renegociar acuerdo de la deuda con el Club de París
Experts believe that Havana could request a new postponement of the debt it has with the 14 states that make up the Paris Club — including Spain and France — after not having been able to assume the payments corresponding to last year.
In 2015, Cuba signed a historic agreement with the Paris Club, which canceled $8.5 billion of total debt of 11 billion with a commitment to pay the remaining amount in installments until 2023.
The Caribbean country partially defaulted on its obligations in 2019, and in 2020 it declared itself unable to fully assume the quota. For this reason, it requested a two-year moratorium for a total of about 200 million in arrears to the multilateral organization, which accepted only one year with the possibility of renegotiating.
The Cuban deputy prime minister was also received by former President of the French Republic François Hollande.
During the meeting, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the official visit made by the former French president to Cuba in May 2015 was recalled, as well as the State visit to France by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz in February 2016, during which important agreements were signed, being applied and that made it possible to deepen the level of political, economic and cooperation relations between both nations.
El Viceprimer ministro Ricardo Cabrisas Ruíz, quien realiza una visita de trabajo a #Francia fue recibido esta tarde por el ex Presidente de la República Francesa, @fhollandehttps://t.co/gmQOVyP6LE
@EmbajadorElioRP @CubaMINREX pic.twitter.com/08Q7QWMKDm— Ambassade de Cuba en France (@EmbaCubaFrancia) June 8, 2021
Cabrisas recognized the personal contribution of the former French president to the development of relations between the two nations.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry highlighted that the meetings of the Cuban deputy prime minister served to address the main issues on the bilateral agenda and ratify the common will to expand political, economic trade, investment and cooperation ties.
EFE/OnCuba
