Mohammed Shams Eddin, director of that Bureau, said in his speech, that the experience of Cuba and its confrontation with the longest blockade in modern history is worthy of study and constitutes a road map to be followed due to the firmness shown in the defense of the values of freedom, socialism, social justice and sovereignty.

Despite this crude and criminal siege, Cuba maintained its health and education programs, and its universities have received thousands of young people from all over the world, who graduated as professionals and returned to work in their countries, Shams Eddin said.

In turn, the Cuban ambassador Luis Mariano Fernández Rodríguez explained to the journalists, diplomats, and economists present, that more than 80 percent of the current Cuban population has only known Cuba with a blockade, and that at current prices, the damages accumulated over more than six decades amount to more than 159 billion dollars.

It is estimated that, in the absence of the blockade, Cuba’s GDP could have grown by nine percent in 2022, he explained.

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