The economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba has cost the system of the Ministry of Communications more than 55 million dollars, according to a report presented at a Public Hearing convened by the National Assembly, which was attended by the Minister of Communications, Jorge Luis Perdomo Di-Lella, the president of ETECSA Mayra Arevich, and by directors and workers of the ICT sector.

During the Public Hearing convened by the Services Attention Commission, they informed that the most affected companies are the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA), the IT Security and Computer Applications Company (DESOFT), the Cuban Postal Services and Information and Communications business groups, which include the Cuban Radio and Communication and Broadcasting company and CUBATEL.

According to the report, more than 95% of the cases can be found in ETECSA, reaching 54 million dollars in losses in one year. Difficult access to technology supplies, to licensed equipment or to North American components causes major losses.

On the subject, ETECSA's President Mayra Arevich commented that the acquisition of technologies, applications, and software from the United States continues to be a brake on the development of communications and the training of specialists.

"Not having more current platforms that have percentages of North American technology higher than the approved license means that we have to combine several platforms from different providers to achieve the same goal. This can only be achieved through human capital and the skills of our specialists."

Carlos Miguel, vice-president of the Cuban Informatics Union in Havana and self-employed worker, stated that the non-state sector is also harmed by the blockade, as they do not have access to international certifications offered by large companies such as Amazon and Google.

"This means that, from a competitive point of view, we cannot validate the knowledge that we empirically have. Recently, we were blocked by the vast majority of services, which we use as communication tools. And our software, as services implemented in Cuba, cannot use payment gateways," said Carlos Miguel.

The Minister of Communications, Jorge Luis Perdomo, said that the blockade is an obsolete policy that has not yielded results and is still in force despite strong international rejection. The blockade, he added, regarding the communications sector, is a policy of double standards: blockade and political subversion, which affects our sector and at the same time tries to confuse people with the proliferation of fake news. The Helms-Burton Act itself states that communications with Cuba will be held, however, it hinders the financial sector, transactions in the postal sector, communications and ICTs.

"Experiences have been reported in every sector, of how they intimidate suppliers, try to hinder financing and credits to our country and spread terror to international companies that want to do business with Cuba," declared the head of the Cuban Communications Ministry.