HAVANA, September 16, 2009 (AFP) - President Barack Obama may have campaigned on a platform of "change," but Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said Wednesday he is still waiting for a shift in the US embargo on the island.

"The blockade policy remains in place. The arrival in power of the new US president has not led in changes in the implementation of the embargo," he said in Havana.

Rodriguez was speaking at the unveiling of a new report on the consequences of the embargo, which is due to be presented to the United Nations General Assembly on September 28.

As proof of the continuity of US policy towards Cuba, Rodriguez cited Obama's decision Monday to renew the "Trading with the Enemy Act" that provided the original basis for the embargo on Cuba in 1963.

The longstanding blockade has gone through different phases of implementation, with sanctions being strengthened in 1992 and 1996, and then relaxed in 2000 to allow the sale of agricultural products and medicine, under certain conditions, to the Cuban government.

"It's true that the global economic crisis had an impact on our economy, it's true that there are other factors, but I would say that the principal obstacle to

Cuba's development is the economic, trade and financial blockade that has been imposed upon us for more than 50 years," Rodriguez said.

Cuba estimates that the embargo has cost its economy some 96 billion dollars in the half-century it has been imposed.

On April 13, Obama modified the sanctions to authorize Cuban-Americans to travel freely to the island, and loosened restrictions on remittances and trade involving the telecommunications sector.

And a US delegation will begin discussions in Havana on Thursday with the Cuban government on the possibility of restarting postal links between the two countries, State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Wednesday.

Rodriguez said the new measures being taken by the Obama administration were "positive," but added he nonetheless considered them "limited."

"It is true that the rhetoric is less aggressive," and the new president "has shown himself to be a man with good intentions, intelligent, and a modern political man," he said.

But, he added, "Obama was elected on the basis of change, and when it comes to the embargo on Cuba, there has not been any change."