Without Venezuelan oil and cornered by protests, Cuban dictatorship exempts multinationals from taxes

The Cuban dictatorship announced on Thursday that exempt foreign renewable energy companies investing in the country from paying taxes for eight years and will charge 20% of your profits after this term.

The measurement is published one day after the diet respond with a series of actions to calm the spirits before the mass protests that erupted Sunday in 40 cities of the island to protest the food and medicine shortages and power outages that have become more frequent in recent weeks.

Disclaimer “to companies with totally foreign capital that carry out electricity production projects with renewable energy sources, the payment of income tax for 8 years, counted since the beginning of its commercial operations ”, indicates a resolution published in the Official Journal.

Among the measures announced on Wednesday, the regime of Miguel Díaz-Canel estimated that there will be rapid improvement in power generation to avoid blackouts that irritate the population so much, in addition to grant permission to travelers to enter the country tax-free for drugs and food.

The text, signed by the Minister of Finance and Prices, Meisi Bolanos, stresses that the measure is taken “with the aim of increasing the participation of renewable energy sources in the electricity production matrix”.

The Cuban energy matrix is ​​currently being formed for 95% fossil fuels and 5% renewable energies. The country aspires to change this proportion up to 24% renewable energy by 2030, which requires a significant investment.

In the production of electricity, Cuba uses almost all of the very heavy crude (high sulfur content) that it extracts from its wells and petroleum products that it imports from Venezuela and other countries.

Historic protests

This Sunday, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest against the regime, shouting “freedom!”, on an unprecedented day that saw hundreds of arrests and clashes after President Miguel Díaz-Canel ordered his supporters to come out to confront the protesters.

The strongest protests that have taken place in Cuba since the so-called “maleconazo” of August 1994, are carried out with the country plunged into a serious crisis.

The images of hundreds of people marching amid cries of “down with dictatorship” and “homeland and life” in the streets of the city of San Antonio de los Baños, in Artemisa (west), lit the fuse on social media and called for protests across Cuba.

Meanwhile, the Cuban regime denies that there was any police crackdown during the massive protests, which contrasts with the many videos of scenes of police and para-police violence against civilians circulating on the networks, as well as eyewitness accounts and relatives of detainees at the protests.

So far, there are no official numbers of detainees and missing, as international human rights organizations and militant groups put them in the hundreds.

For its part, The United Nations expressed concern on Wednesday over the death of a protester, the first known death since the protests began in Cuba.

On another side, mobile internet connection on the island is still cut three days after the protestsAlthough a minority have recovered the data service and some young people manage to access the network with the help of VPN platforms and nifty tricks.

(With information from AFP and EFE)

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