Cuba and the U.S.A. Talk about Regulatory Issues

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 14 (acn) While anti-Cuban legislators seek in the House of Representatives of the U.S. Congress to tighten the blockade against Cuba, government representatives from both countries talked in this capital on regulatory issues.

According to a note by the Cuban Foreign Ministry, for two days the delegations met in Havana for the third meeting of the Dialogue on Regulatory Issues, a mechanism established in October, 2015, between entities of both countries to assess the extent and impact of the four packages of measures implemented by the government of Barack Obama.
The changes made by the U.S. government seek to change the implementation of some aspects of the blockade on economic, trade and financial links, and in that sense the meeting in Havana weighed up the limitations and obstacles that still persist for implementation, as well as regulations in the Caribbean nation for commercial and financial relations.
Army General Raul Castro Ruz, President of the Cuban councils of State and Ministers, spoke last week on one of Obama's measures while addressing the National Assembly of the People's Power, when he pointed out the harmful effects of the US blockade, still in force.
More than three months after the announcements by President Obama, on March 15, that the ban on Cuba to use dollars in its international transactions would be removed, the truth is that so far it has not been possible to make payments or cash deposits in that currency, pointed out Raul.
Cuba has reiterated that lifting the blockade in its entirety corresponds to the U.S. Congress, although the U.S. president has broad prerogatives and progress could be made in the dismantling of that policy.
Heading the delegations of the regulatory dialogue were Ileana Nunez, Cuban Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, and Mark Wells, coordinator of the Office for Cuban Affairs of the State Department.
Participating in the two-day meeting were executives of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Investment and of the Central Bank of Cuba, as well as of the ministries of Foreign Affairs, the Economy and Finance and Prices.
Representing the U.S. were officials of the Departments of the Treasury, Commerce and the State.
From the complex structure of laws and decisions that make up the blockade, Washington and Havana agreed to hold such meetings, which had its first version in Havana in October, in the context of the trip to Cuba of U.S. Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker.