Russian automobile factory will sue Cuba for billionaire debt
HAVANA, Aug. 26th. The Russian automobile factory Miass, the manufacturer of the Ural trucks, will sue Cuban entities for non-payment of shipments of parts and pieces of those vehicles to the island as part of a 2018 agreement that the Cuban signatories breached.
Miass is demanding two thousand 400 million rubles (23.4 million dollars) from two Cuban companies and the state corporation VEB.RF in a trial that will begin in mid-September, the ura.ru site reported.
The Cuban entities in question are Banco Internacional de Comercio S.A. (BICSA) and the Cuban State Company Importer and Exporter of Technical Products (Tecnoimport).
On them weighs the claim for “solidarity recovery” of 22 million in losses and one million 400 thousand euros in interest for the use of other people’s funds
According to the Russian media, these are businesses from several years ago that emerged through international cooperation projects between Havana and Moscow. The Russian side was to provide Ural NEXT 4320 vehicle kits, components and assemblies for assembly in Cuban factories.
As part of the agreement, the Russian manufacturer provided video instructions and Cuban personnel in charge of assembling the trucks were trained in Russia. The parts were delivered in 2018 when the plant belonged to the GAZ group.
In total, enough kits were sent to Cuba to manufacture 120 GAZ and 500 Ural vehicles, and the Russian corporation VEB.RF, dedicated to financial support issues, was the intermediary in the agreement.
Although “charity was never discussed,” payments for those products were never received, according to a company source.
“On each occasion, the Cuban side found reasons not to pay. They explained that the cars do not circulate, that it is impossible to assemble them”. However, it was clear from the photos of the military parade that the transport was in motion and was being used effectively, ”he noted.
Meanwhile, Moscow extended until 2040 payments on a loan made for the construction of a power plant on the island on which the government has not started work.
The extension of the payment time adds to the benefits given by Moscow to Havana in recent years. In 2014, for example, Russian President Vladimir Putin forgave 90 percent of Cuba’s debt at the time of the Soviet Union, which reached 35 billion dollars.
Of all that money, Cuba would only have to return 3.5 billion.
