The debt of the Cuban Government with Spanish corporations is round at the least 300 million euros | Economy | EUROtoday

The collapse of the Cuban financial system has been a serious setback for airways and inns which were working within the archipelago for many years. The tightening of the embargo from the United States, which has prohibited the provision of crude oil from Venezuela or Mexico, has been the set off for an unprecedented financial disaster, which has compelled contingency plans to be improvised to keep away from the dearth of gasoline or the absence of vacationers. The impression of that earthquake has been a lot broader and has prolonged to the remainder of the Spanish material with pursuits in Cuba. Spanish corporations declare that the Cuban Government owes them at the least round 300 million euros (together with money owed and different funds that can’t be taken out of the island), though it’s possible that the figures are larger as a result of the information is extracted from a doc through which the vast majority of corporations with a presence on the island don’t present their figures.

The numbers seem within the newest non-public debt report ready by the Economic and Commercial Office of Spain in Havana, which displays that the quantity of debt accrued by Spanish corporations with pursuits in Cuba, both by means of investments or exports, grew by a slight 0.1% over the past 12 months to achieve 255.9 million euros. The doc, to which EL PAÍS has had entry, factors out that the quantity of non-payments held by Spanish corporations is far larger, reaching as much as 330 million euros, since 39.5 million euros in retained dividends, 23.6 million in funds from industrial operations and 11.3 million in collections in Specific Asset Accounts (Finesp) will not be accounted for as liabilities, accounts which might be nourished by the cost of debt. of Cuban state corporations and whose funds can’t be transferred overseas both.

The survey was despatched to 930 Spanish corporations with pursuits in Cuba and solely 182 responded, 19.5% of the full. Business sources with operations on the island justify this low stage of participation by the truth that 20% of the corporations, round 180, are in chapter proceedings because of the aforementioned non-payments. Therefore, there are as many corporations which have responded as there are people who have entered chapter. Of the 182 corporations that participated within the survey, 85% (154) confirmed that they carried money owed value 255.9 million euros, the quantities of which have been largely generated within the three years between 2017 and 2019. Two thirds of those corporations are positioned in three autonomous communities: Catalonia, with 32% of the businesses; Madrid, with 26%, and the Basque Country, with 15%.

By measurement, probably the most affected corporations are the medium-sized ones, with a median quantity of debt of two million euros, whereas the bottom quantity corresponds to the microenterprises, with a median quantity of 850,000 euros. Despite this comparatively small quantity, 19% of the businesses taking part within the survey acknowledge that solely what the Cuban Executive owes them exceeds their turnover within the final 12 months.

A spokesperson for the Platform of Those Affected by Non-Payments of the Cuban Government, built-in inside the Catalan employers’ affiliation Foment del Treball and which brings collectively Spanish corporations affected by the aforementioned legal responsibility, believes that one of the best ways to remove these non-payments could be by means of the debt conversion packages of the Spanish State. The final one, signed in Seville final July, aspired to mobilize as much as 375 million euros in initiatives linked to vitality, water or meals safety. “In the current economic conditions, no company is going to invest money in Cuba. But it would be very important for that money to be used to pay off the debt of those creditor companies, the vast majority of which supply food, medicine and vaccines to ten million people at risk of suffering an unprecedented human crisis in the archipelago,” says the spokesperson.

Regarding the difficulties in recovering the money owed accrued by successive governments linked to the Castro regime, tourism corporations are those which might be encountering probably the most obstacles to function each day. Meliá and Iberostar, the 2 chains that handle probably the most properties on the island, with 34 and 20 belongings, respectively, have needed to shut inns to redistribute their purchasers as a result of low occupancy ranges (Canadian vacationers, who represented 50% of the full at first of 2026, have been repatriated within the final two weeks as a result of closure of operations of Air Canada, the nation’s largest airline), whereas the three corporations of Spanish origin that made connections between Madrid and Havana (Iberia, Air Europa and W2Fly) have needed to reorder their operations to Madrid and refuel in Santo Domingo to have the ability to assure the flight as a result of lack of gasoline in Cuba.