U.S. Blockade Hinders Computerization of Cuban Society

Contramaestre, Oct. 31.- Cuba has set itself the goal of computerizing society and increasing the population’s access to the Internet, but this strategy faces multiple limitations due to the economic, commercial and financial blockade that the United States has maintained against the island for almost six decades.

According to the report presented last September in Havana by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, the most affected companies are ETECSA, Cuban Telecommunications, SEGURMATICA and DESOFT, Computer Applications. And the cost of the damages amounts to more than 55 million dollars.

The business groups Correos de Cuba and Informática y las Comunicaciones, which include the company Radio y Comunicación y Difusión de Cuba and CUBATEL, also suffer the damages caused by the US blockade, which prevents the acquisition of equipment in the United States and in some other countries.

The United States does not allow Cuba to carry out financial and commercial transactions with the U.S. dollar, so using another type of convertible currency makes the acquisition of information technology equipment and devices more expensive.

Last year, under the administration of President Donald Trump, Washington created, for that purpose, the Internet Task Force for Cuba. On the other hand, many sites do not allow access to information from the Internet granted to the .cu domain.

Faced with this situation, alternatives have been sought for the promotion of e-commerce and e-government platforms by national companies, since Cuba does not give up in its efforts to computerize society and make the Internet available to everyone, always with a quality service for the people.

(With information from RHC in Spanish)

Written by Radio Grito de Baire