Creditors Concerned about Agreement Between Cuba and Russia

HAVANA TIMES — The rescheduling of Cuba’s debts to Russia has caused concern among other creditor countries belonging to the “Paris Club,” said Western diplomats to Reuters, though they didn’t want to identify themselves.

At the end of 2010, Havana was said to owe $30.5 billion to the Paris Club, which is composed of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK and the United States.

That figure included the old debt from the Soviet era, but with the agreement with Russia, the island “will be in a stronger negotiating position to restructure its remaining debt,” said Richard Feinberg, a member of the Latin America Initiative of the Brookings Institution.

The agreement with Russia, signed in late February during a visit to the island by Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev, ended a dispute concerning over $25 billion that Cuba owed to the former Soviet Union.