Cuba will go into shock after the announcement of a severe and shocking economic adjustment that, despite being 'decorated' with the flags of socialism, It seems more like a package of neoliberal measures.
Cornered by a strong economic crisis and an acute lack of resources, The Cuban Government has been forced to make public services more expensive and basic goods, despite the risks that this will increase popular disenchantment with the revolution.
This new plan of measures reminds us of the rigorous macroeconomic route that the president of Argentina, the libertarian Javier Milei, announced in December to attack the financial distortions of the South American country.
The island faces a chronic fuel crisis, which worsened in April 2023due to the failure to comply with commitments by the countries that supply crude oil to Cuba in the midst of “a complex energy situation,” in the words of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Venezuela, Cuba's main crude oil supplier, delivers 56,000 barrels to the island diaries. Mexico and Russia are its other two major suppliers.
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Measures
It seems that the regime is seeking to get the Cuban people to take to the streets again to protest and demand
With salaries of low purchasing power and a minimum of a little more than eight dollars a month, the Cuban regime – which subsidizes almost all of the services and basic goods that Cubans consume – will increase electricity and liquefied gas rates by 25 percent starting March 1.
For Thursday, regular gasoline (from 25 Cuban pesos to 132, which is equivalent to $1.10) and special gasoline (from 30 Cuban pesos to 156, about $1.30) were expected to increase by more than 520 percent. ), but This increase was postponed due to a “cybersecurity incident.” in computer systems, whose origin has been identified as a virus coming from abroad.” And although for now there is no date for this increase, there is no doubt that it will happen.
The fact is that with or without delay, These measures will hit hard the pockets of the more than 11 million Cubans. And the big question is: after paying the tariff increases, how much will Cubans have left from their salaries to buy medicines, food, soaps, shampoo, toothpaste, deodorant, detergents, toilet paper, notebooks, pencils, books and clothes or commute daily by bus to work?
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“It seems that the regime is seeking to get the Cuban people to take to the streets again to protest and demand,” said Cuban dissident Berta Soler, leader of Las Damas de Blanco, an opposition group created in 2003 by relatives of political prisoners that is considered by the Government as an illegal organization.
ANDn In Cuba, organizations independent of the Communist Party are prohibited of Cuba (PCC), the only legal one.
“The regime impoverishes the people of Cuba much more,” Soler told El Universal (Mexico) from Havana, recalling the July 2021 anti-government protestswho demanded freedom, democracy and the end of socialism.
“We Cubans are the ones who have to put an end to this”he warned in reference to the 65 years of the system that was installed in Cuba in January 1959.
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Unlike Argentina, where there are opposition political parties of the center and left and union, business, peasant and other union groups that have mobilized to protest against Milei's plan, the Cuban situation seemed immutable.: the decisions of the PCC are followed or complied with and without the right to debate, protest, claim or rejection.
The Cuban revolution hides behind the economic blockade that the United States imposed on it in 1962 to justify the crisis that the island is going through and he systematically denies that his model of socialist economy, predominantly state, is responsible.
The failures
“The measures to be taken do not constitute a neoliberal package, as our adversaries have tried to publicize.”
In a clear reflection of its fragile and deteriorated agricultural and industrial apparatus, after six and a half decades of revolution, Cuba accepts that today it must import 80 percent of its annual food consumption at a cost of about 2 billion dollars. And the regime admitted that in 2023 it could only cover a third of its diesel needs.
When announcing on December 20 that part of the adjustment plan would be revealed in January, the Prime Minister of Cuba, Manuel Marrero, rejected – without directly quoting Milei – any comparison with the shock of Argentina or other countries and clarified that “the measures to take do not constitute a neoliberal package, as our adversaries have tried to divulge.”
“They are aimed at correcting the distortions detected, in order to create conditions that mark a more accelerated trend in the economy.a, provide greater social protection to families and people in vulnerable situations,” he stressed.
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One goal is to “ensure a more fair and equitable distribution of the wealth that is created” and another is “recover macroeconomic balances not achieved due to the situation that the national economy is going through”, he posed.
The regime projected inflation of 30 percent in 2023 (closed at 31.34 percent), after which in 2022 it was 39 percent year-on-year (compared to 77.03 percent in 2021). Likewise, the peso suffered an accelerated devaluation in 2023 in the informal market and, according to updated data, it reached around 290 pesos per dollar. The official price today is 120 pesos.
Linked to centers of study of the revolution, the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal anticipated in X (Twitter) that “inflation (…) in February in Cuba promises.”
Although international oil and gas prices are “lower” in 2024 than a year ago, he recalled that the state subsidy for electricity and liquefied gas “usually” was “on a large scale in Cuba” and predicted that The increase in regular gasoline will impact “other prices and rates”. It will all be because of the shock in Cuba.
JOSÉ MELENDEZ
EL UNIVERSAL (MEXICO) – GDA
SAINT JOSEPH
With additional information from AFP – Havana
Daily power cuts due to energy deficit
Given the lack of fuel to generate the energy demanded, Cuba in recent years has had to cut electricity to address their energy deficit.
The daily report of the state company Unión Eléctrica (UNE), dependent on the Ministry of Energy and Mines, calculates for the time of highest consumption, in the afternoon and evening, an electrical generation capacity of 2,208 megawatts (MW) and a maximum demand of 2,700 MW. Thus, The deficit – the difference between supply and demand – is 492 MW and the impact – the circuits that will be disconnected – will reach 562 MW during “peak hours”.
The island celebrates more than seven days with daily impact rates of between 20 and 34 percentwhich weighs down the economy and generates social discontent.
These cuts have not always been daily. What's more, the energy situation had stabilized in recent months, but With the turn of the year, large specific drops in generation capacity have been recorded.
The Cuban electrical system is in a precarious situation, evident in the frequent failures and breakages of its obsolete terrestrial power plants, due to chronic lack of investment and maintenance. The regime also blames the economic blockade of the United States, which prevents it from obtaining parts to fix the energy infrastructure.
Also, The absence of foreign currency from the State has impacted fuel imports, which directly affects energy production.
The Cuban Government has rented up to seven floating power plants in the last five years to the Turkish company Karpowership to alleviate the lack of generation capacity. This is a quick and temporary solution, but at the same time it is polluting and expensive.
The contribution of renewable energies in the island's energy generation is only 6 percent.
Frequent power outages damage the economy – which contracted between 1 and 2 percent in 2023 – and they fuel social discontent in a society already seriously affected by an economic crisis for three years.
Blackouts have been one of the triggers for protests in recent years, including those on July 11, 2021, which were the largest in decades.
EFE
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