Cuba’s leader to visit China as island battles struggling economy, energy woes
- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel will visit Beijing during tour seen as mission to secure support for crisis-stricken Caribbean nation
- The Latin American country, facing blackouts and hurricane damage, is likely to request debt relief, expert says
Diaz-Canel’s trip is widely seen as a mission to secure economic and energy support from long-time trade and energy partners. China is Cuba’s biggest trade partner and one of its major creditors.
The crisis-stricken Caribbean nation has benefited from write-offs or postponements of its debt payments. China forgave US$6 billion of Cuban debt as part of a major restructuring in 2011, and the Paris Club creditor nations agreed to defer Cuba’s 2021 foreign debt repayment until this year.
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Hurricane Ian batters Florida’s Gulf coast after causing island-wide blackout in Cuba
During Diaz-Canel’s first stop, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said his country would donate a solar power plant and resume supplying fuel to Cuba to help ease its energy shortages. He also agreed to forgive an unspecified amount of the interest on Cuba’s debt.
