Cuba thanks OPEC for support as US tightens blockade

[Judi Lynn]

Friday, June 26, 2020

HAVANA, Cuba (CMC) — The Government of Cuba has thanked the Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries (OPEC) for supporting the economy of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean island, even as the United States continues to tighten its restrictions against the island.

Cuba's ambassador to Austria, Loipa Sanchez, during a meeting with the director general of the OPEC Fund for International Development, Dr Abdulhamid Alkhalifa, director general of the OPEC Fund for International Development, reiterated the importance that cooperation with OPEC in key sectors of the national economy such as agriculture and water resources has had for Cuba.

Since 2002, when the first agreement was signed between Cuba and the OPEC Fund for International Development, the organisation has granted 15 government concessional loans for the implementation of projects in different provinces, aimed at upgrading irrigation systems, rehabilitating electrical networks and water and sewerage systems, seven of which are currently underway.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries was founded in September 1960 in Baghdad, Iraq, and is made up of 13 countries in Africa, Asia and South America, which hold 43 per cent of the world's oil production and 81 per cent of the world's reserves.

http://www.jamaicaobserver.com/news/cuba-thanks-opec-for-support-as-us-tightens-blockade_197129?profile=1373