Madam Chair,
Madam Secretary-General,
Dear Ambassadors, Delegates, and Representatives of the Secretariat,
I extend to you all a warm greeting on behalf of the Cuban delegation.
It is fitting and necessary to begin by acknowledging Peru, the outgoing Chair of our Group, for the excellent work carried out. 2025 was an intense year, and the G-77 and China, effectively led by Peru, made a fundamental contribution to the success of the XVI UNCTAD Conference.
We welcome Kenya as our new Chair and wish him every success. We are confident that, under his leadership, the Group will continue to work actively and consistently towards a fairer and more inclusive international economic order that guarantees the sustainable development to which we are all entitled.
Our Group bears the immense responsibility of representing the interests of the majority of the world's nations. In this context, it is more essential than ever to strengthen unity and cohesion around our legitimate demands.
We must continue to speak with one voice and stand united against those who seek to divide us, render our realities invisible, and curtail our rights.
Dear Representatives:
In 2026, UNCTAD will operate in a particularly challenging global environment. The suffocating burden of external debt and the exclusionary global financial system persist. Poverty and inequality are perpetuated. Unilateral coercive measures, arbitrarily imposed as a means of coercion, are intensifying, causing direct, intentional, and politically motivated economic and humanitarian harm to our nations.
International development aid is steadily decreasing to finance the unprecedented surge in military spending. It is irrational that on our planet we invest almost 10 times more in devices to kill than in saving lives.
The United States is openly attacking the multilateral system and the sovereignty of other states, plunging the planet into bellicose chaos and posing a constant threat to international stability.
That country is withdrawing from multilateral institutions, including UNCTAD, and instead promoting unilateralism and barbarism, in flagrant violation of the UN Charter.
The brutal and unjustified US military intervention in Venezuela, the kidnapping of its constitutional president, and the blatant attempt to seize the strategic resources of that sister nation, and of the rest of the nations of Latin America and the Caribbean, demonstrates a total disregard for international law.
The United States is now openly threatening Cuba, further intensifying the economic blockade against our people, and seeking to prevent all our fuel imports, intent on suffocating the national economy.
On their side are immense military power and the sheer size of their economy, plus a vast history of aggression and crimes. But on our side are reason and international law.
Cuba does not threaten or attack anyone, but no one dictates what we should do. We are not willing to yield to threats and blackmail, nor to renounce our right to build our own destiny, in peace with the rest of the world.
On behalf of the Cuban people and government, I thank you for the expressions of support and solidarity we have received from many of the countries represented here.
Dear colleagues:
The agreements adopted last year at the XVI UNCTAD Conference are a clear and viable roadmap for the coming years. It is everyone's responsibility to implement these decisions. The Geneva Consensus cannot become a dead letter.
You can always count on the constructive and supportive actions of the Cuban delegation in support of this Group of sister nations and the work of UNCTAD.
Thank you very much.