New York, 25 February 2021. Between April 2019 and March 2020 there was a dramatic increase of the damages caused by the blockade in the manufacturing and service sectors, which amounted to 610.2 million dollars, a figure which exceeded the one recorded in the previous period.
This increase was mainly due to the unprecedented and aggressive measures by the US government aimed at suffocating the Cuban economy, particularly its efforts to hinder the arrival of fuel to the Island.
Transforming the cost of the blockade into the country’s payment capacity would allow us to have an additional, substantive and sustained financing source that would provide greater dynamics to the investment programs related to the strategic sectors of the National Development Plan (PNDES, by its Spanish initials). Thus, the necessary conditions would be created to gradually achieve sustained growth in the annual Gross Domestic Product.
As part of its policy of harassment to impede our economic development, at the beginning 2019 and in an unprecedented way, the US government implemented actions in the framework of the evaluation of proposals of Cuba´s Cooperation Programs with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the United Nations Children´s Fund (UNICEF).
The objective of this maneuver was to stymie the adoption of Cuba´s Country Programmes with those UN entities for the period 2020-2024, which would directly affect the Island´s efforts to implement the 2030 Agenda and its Sustainable Development Goals in the coming years.
However, once again, we had the support of a significant group of countries that rejected the US attempts to politicize the work of these United Nations bodies, which allowed Cuba´s Cooperation Programs to be approved by consensus and without any modification.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations
