MIAMI, United States. — The population and housing census in Cuba was postponed until 2025 due to the economic crisis facing the Caribbean island, Cuban officials said this Friday at a press conference.
The study, which is carried out every 10 years and was scheduled for 2022, “has been postponed for economic reasons,” said Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, deputy head of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) in statements collected by the EFE Agency.
For his part, Diego Enrique González Galbán, director of the Center for Population and Development Studies (CEPDE) and head of the national census, said that “there is a proposal to conduct the census in the first four-month period of 2025” and that this was “the official date”.
According to the official, last March the budget was approved to be able to carry out the “prior registration of the census” during 2023, as well as a “census test” at the end of the year.
However, the CEPDE director admitted that the current fuel crisis is making the work difficult.
The information about the postponement of the population and housing census in Cuba comes after Mexican entities delivered 8,000 tablets to ONEI for “census tasks.”
The donation was made by the Mexican Agency for International Development Cooperation (AMEXCID) and the National Institute of Geography and Statistics (INEGI) of Mexico.
It is also expected that Mexican specialists from INEGI will provide ONEI personnel with training in the use and management of the equipment, as well as in census matters.
“It has been very fruitful for our country because we are going to use them very well, we are going to take great care of them. We know the responsibility that we acquire with them and I am sure that it is the continuity of a great relationship that our office has with the National Institute of Statistics and Geography of Mexico, in general with other Mexican institutions”, said Alfonso Fraga himself after the delivery of the donation.