💰 Cuba says its allies have pledged help to end its economic crisis

TL;DR

HAVANA, Nov 30 (Reuters) - China, Russia, Algeria and Turkey have pledged to restructure Cuba's debt, provide new trade and investment financing, and help ease an energy crisis, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel told state-run media following a rare trip abroad last week.The Communist-run country has yet to recover from a precipitous drop in output during the coronavirus pandemic and is plagued by a litany of problems ranging from power blackouts to shortages of food, medicine and fuel.Pavel Vidal, a former Cuban central bank economist now based in Colombia, was skeptical the new deals would be a silver bullet, citing in particular Cuba's reluctance to follow through with promised market-oriented reforms."Diaz-Canel's international tour tried to unblock financial and commercial flows based on political agreements and blaming everything on U.S. sanctions and the pandemic," Vidal said.It ranks among relatively few nations globally that is not a member of a major multilateral lending organization like the International Monetary Fund or World Bank, where many countries are seeking post-pandemic relief."

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