CUBA’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla, is set to visit Guyana soon, as part of his tour of the Caribbean.
“In a few hours, I will start a tour of countries in the Caribbean which include official visits to Trinidad and Tobago, Saint Lucia, Guyana and Barbados,” said Parrilla in a Twitter post on Tuesday.
Parrilla served as Cuba’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN) from 1995 to 2003. He was appointed as Minister of Foreign Affairs on March 2, 2009, replacing Felipe Pérez Roque after serving as the vice-minister.
This was a result of the 2009 shake-up by Raúl Castro.
On October 25, 2011, Parrilla addressed the UN General Assembly right before the annual non-binding vote calling for the US to end its embargo against Cuba.
On July 20, 2015, Rodríguez attended the re-inauguration of the Cuban Embassy in Washington, D.C., making him the first Cuban minister of foreign affairs to visit the US on a diplomatic mission since 1958.
Guyana is seeking to expand trade relations with Cuba and in recent years, has exported millions of dollars in goods to the Spanish-speaking Caribbean island.
According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, economic diplomacy is critical to Guyana’s progress and has taken centre stage in the State’s relationship with many countries since the 2016 appointment of new heads of overseas missions.
Guyana and Cuba established diplomatic relations on December 8, 1972. The two countries share strong bilateral relations which has been characterised by many exchanges at the government level and cooperation under the Guyana/Cuba Joint Commission. Trade is a renewed dimension of the decades-old friendship.