LIMA, Peru – To “encourage joint cooperation to develop industrial capacity in Cuba.” That was the call made this Friday the 16th by the Cuban regime’s Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, to members of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU).
Havana has been insisting in recent years on attracting foreign investment—especially from the Eurasian region—as a means to alleviate the severe crisis on the island.
This time, Marrero participated virtually in the meeting of the Eurasian Intergovernmental Council, where he proposed turning Cuba into “a key logistics hub for the EAEU” to distribute products “to the countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region.”
According to Marrero, making this idea a reality “would allow for the processing, production, and subsequent distribution of higher value-added products to countries in the region, using raw materials from EAEU member states.”
With an almost completely paralyzed industrial sector, an energy crisis, and widespread shortages, the Cuban regime highlighted during its intervention several sectors with alleged potential on the island. Among them, Marrero named the metallurgical and chemical industries, fertilizers, food production, transportation, energy, health, and biotechnology.
Aimed at reaching future agreements, the creation of a bilateral logistics committee was planned between Cuba’s Chamber of Commerce and the EAEU Business Council. Additionally, the Cuban Prime Minister announced the upcoming Fourth Joint Commission between the Eurasian Economic Commission and Cuba, scheduled to take place later in 2025.
“We must now move forward with its implementation and operation,” Marrero urged.
Given the Cuban dictatorship’s inability to generate wealth and prosperity for over 60 years, the Communist Party leadership is trying to woo investors to inject capital into the island.
Back in 2022, the regime had already proposed lending a 50-hectare plot of land to the EAEU to set up an industrial park where companies from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia could carry out their production.
More recently, at the end of last July, Cuba announced the launch of Cayo Digital, a new project in collaboration with Russia focused on the creation of a cluster of companies from BRICS Plus countries as well as the Eurasian Economic Union. The project is mainly aimed at providing products and services to clients in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Cayo Digital is envisioned as a technological hub capable of hosting up to 15,000 residents: 12,000 specialists and 3,000 students, according to the official report.
“Its execution involves the construction or rehabilitation of the necessary infrastructure for the lives and work of its inhabitants: offices, laboratories, industrial plants, residences, stores, a shopping center, sports, cultural and recreational facilities,” the report states.
Likewise, the so-called “Cuban Silicon Valley” would include daycare centers, schools, and university branches. To that end, the project’s authors emphasized the importance of “ensuring high-quality communication routes and services such as gas, water, electricity, sewage, and garbage collection.”
Given its design, Cayo Digital would represent—within the island’s current context—a kind of dystopian and anachronistic utopia, as Cubans today lack, more than ever, the very services the project considers “vital.” Power outages in several regions of the country exceed 20 hours a day, thousands of families lack consistent access to water, the healthcare system is collapsing, and the ongoing fuel shortage continues to worsen the existing transportation crisis.
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