SLP, Mexico.- Cuban economist Pedro Monreal criticized the misrepresentation of the information and opacity of the regime with respect to the Dollarization in Cubaafter the explanations offered by Cuban officials at the round table on Wednesday, dedicated to the process of capturing currencies in the country.
In a X threadAntres Twitter, the expert said that the official program broadcast on Cuban television contains the “four riders of the Apocalypse” on economic policy in Cuba: the lack of self -criticism, misrepresentation, opacity and insolence.
According to him specialistdespite the fact that they allude to alleged “projections to correct distortions and reimpulse the economy”, they have only extended these distortions due to a cluster of “poorly connected measures.”
1/16 The round table on partial dollarization included the “four riders of the apocalypse” of the official communication on economic policy in Cuba: lack of self -criticism, misrepresentation, opacity, and insolence. They talk about correcting distortions when they are amplifying them pic.twitter.com/yq9lzwnhxo
– Pedro Monreal (@pmmonreal) January 30, 2025
For Monreal, the regime omits the mistakes made in economic policy and uses vague terms such as “subjective aspects”, without recognizing the crisis.
In reference to the intervention of Mildrey Granadillo de la Torre, Vice Minister First of Economics and Planning, he said that the official does not understand the process that explains at the round table, because “partial dollarization is not what they said, that ‘definition’ was They just invented. ”
The misrepresentation
Dollarization is a rational response to uncertainties economic and political, he said, and explained that currencies replace basic money functions that do not fulfill the Cuban weight well. The alleged “partial dollarization” does not try to “capture” currencies, “it is essentially about replacing with foreign exchange.”
He also highlighted as misrepresents the insistence on “capturing” dollars, when the crucial is “generating them”, and said: “Dollarize to ‘capture’ remittances It does not resolve a basic component of the structural crisis: a failed model of international specialization ”.
In his explanation he insisted that for greater availability of foreign exchange there must be higher income (exports and remittances) and have lower expenses (import substitution and modification of investment and consumption patterns). “The essential thing is to modify international productive insertion.”
He also criticized opacity regarding the destiny of remittances, because nothing is spoken of the “temporality”, “graduality”, “phases”, capture in “certain” sectors, “certain degrees of dollarization”, nor of the “evaluation, control, control and management ”.
Using previous promises that have not worked, such as Dollarizo to “foster chains”, the regime continues to promise an improvement in a crisis that does not see end.
“The Cuban government exaggerates the alleged benefits and relevance of a ‘partial dollarization’ without apparent connection with a structural reform of the economy, while presuming a disdain program that does not explain,” concluded the economist.
Expansion of dollar stores
This Wednesday, the round table hosted a program to announce and justify the expansion of Stores that operate exclusively in dollars Americans (USD) throughout the country, as part of its process to partially dollarize the national economy.
Alberto Javier Quiñones Betancourt, vice president of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), explained that the reintroduction of the USD in cash in certain shops responds to the need for faster currency. It will be taken into account that the establishments have the minimum conditions necessary to guarantee the safety and control of this currency.
“This is an option for people who have dollars to put them based on acquiring certain products, at a time like this in which the conditions exist. At other times there have been other conditions and other measures have been taken. Each scenario is different, ”said the official to justify The continuous changes of inefficient policies In the national economy.
In that same official program, Yamilet Álvarez Tejo, head of the Commercial Department of Caribbean stores, lamented the teasing that generated the return in caramels given to customers in the 3rd store. and 70, in Havana, which transcended after the opening of that establishment with dollar payment.
The directive extolled that the change was offered not only with candies, but also with other types of merchandise that is next to the cash register.
“The mood of mockery has been very recurring, to ridicule. Not only there are candies, there are other products available there, in the cash register, to offer the customer in compensation for the return that corresponds to it, ”he added, and then said:“ When paying in cash, when the return it is necessary to give it in cents , in fractional currency, there is really not the availability of fractional currency and this is an inconvenience. ”
The dollar to debate
The reintroduction of the dollar in certain sectors of the Cuban economy is framed in a context of crisis marked by high inflation, food and medicine shortage, and a poor energy system.
Economists and citizens criticize this “partial dollarization”, which could not only increase inequalities, but further mismatch the national economy.
On the subject, economist Mauricio Miranda was a catalog in his Facebook page. “The Cuban government insists on prioritizing the maintenance of the centralized model of the economy and therefore of resources allocation, whose inefficiency is historically demonstrated.”
He explained that they are wrong to define the capture of foreign exchange as the objective of the national economy. “That is their objective, but not of the national economy.” Miranda said that the objective of the economy of a country must be to improve the well -being of the whole society and for this it is essential to increase the production of goods and services.
