The Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM), Cuba’s largest economic enclave, will celebrate its thirteenth anniversary in November with a trade exhibition fair to attract capital, amid US sanctions that have scared away foreign investors, state media reported this Saturday.
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The event, scheduled for November 2 and 3, aims to “promote articulation between users of the zone and the rest of the country’s new economic actors, as well as the promotion of products, services and new incentives to promote foreign trade and foreign investment,” the organizing committee pointed out.
The event, under the ZEDM’s maxim as “a door open to the world,” will take place in a context marked on the island by an oil embargo imposed by the US, and additional sanctions against more than thirty high-ranking officials and fifty state-owned companies, as well as its private sector and foreign investors.
🇨🇺 #Cuba La Zona Especial de Desarrollo Mariel (ZED Mariel), celebrará su décimo tercer aniversario con una Feria Expositiva Comercial, que tendrá lugar los días 2 y 3 de noviembre en el Complejo Histórico Militar Morro – Cabaña
+de 55 usuarios de la Zona
+de 200 participantes pic.twitter.com/sacLoIChWc
— Embacuba Panamá (@EmbacubaP) October 31, 2026
As a result, since May, when Washington’s sanctions began, Canadian mining company Sherritt – the largest investor – and the two largest shipping companies that served its ports, especially in Mariel (west), have announced their departure from the Caribbean country.
The bank that managed operations with Visa and Mastercard, and the main international hotel chains also left the island.
The commemoration of the anniversary of the zone, the Cuban government’s star project to attract foreign capital, will take place in the Morro-Cabaña complex in the Cuban capital and is expected to bring together more than 55 users, representing some two hundred participants as exhibitors.
During the two-day meeting, exchanges with representatives of the enclave will take place, as well as discussions on the present and future for private actors, the organizers said.
Cuba has been mired in a severe economic crisis for more than six years, marked by both internal and external reasons. The tightening of US sanctions and failed national economic and monetary policies have aggravated the structural problems of the Cuban economy.
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