An Information Service of the Cuba Transition Project
Institute
for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies
University of Miami

Issue
19
August 19, 2002

Cuba Transition Project, "Cuba's Foreign Debt,"
August 19, 2002

CUBA'S FOREIGN DEBT CRISIS
EUROPEAN UNION: $10.893
billion (According to the most recent data available
from the Banco Central
de Cuba, the island's official foreign public debt
ascended to $10.893
billion at the end of 2001. Cuba has paid neither
principal nor interest
since 1986 on multilateral obligations to the Club of
Paris [19 primarily
Western European creditor nations].

EASTERN EUROPE: $2.2 billion
(Estimated debt owed to former communist
regimes in Eastern Europe, now
absorbed largely by a unified Germany and the
Czech Republic)

FORMER
SOVIET UNION: $25 billion (Moscow and Havana are engaged in an
on-going
dispute over a Cold War debt calculated by Russia at 20 billion
convertible
roubles)

UNITED KINGDOM: $196 million (Outstanding debt
arrears--including $28
million in short-term credits--to the UK's Export
Credits Guarantee
Department. The ECGP has refused to underwrite any further
British exports
to Cuba due to the island's poor payment
history.)

JAPAN: $1.7 billion (Japan is Cuba's single principal
creditor)

CHINA: $400 million (Beijing committed some $400 million in
long-term loans
to Cuba during Jiang Zemin's state visit in April
2001)

ARGENTINA: $1.58 billion (Cuba's second largest creditor, after
Japan)

MEXICO: $380 million (Refinanced under a 2002
accord)

VENEZUELA: $142 million (In unpaid petroleum purchases, even
under highly
favorable financing terms)

CANADA: $73 million (Official
public debt held by Ottawa. Excludes short-
and medium-term commercial debts
to Canadian suppliers.)

CHILE: $20 million (Unpaid fish imports -- a
typical case of default on a
foreign government's short-term food export
credit program.)

SOUTH AFRICA: $85 million (Includes a delinquent
$13-million guaranteed loan
for the acquisition of diesel engines in
1997)

NOTES: Cuba's foreign debt owed to numerous countries remains
unpaid. The
Castro regime lacks the resources to even pay interest on these
obligations.
Several European governments are now refusing to provide further
export
credit to Cuba. According to a Reuters report on 6 July 2002, "the
island is
notorious for paying its debts late...and public and private
creditors
report that the situation has grown much worse in recent months."
As The
Economist noted in May 2001, "France, Italy and South Africa have
recently
cut off further credit to Cuba, in a bid to claw back some of what
they are
owed."