The year-on-year inflation in the formal market in Cuba stood at 15.41% in October, increasing slightly compared to September and confirming the end of the decline in price increases that began a year and a half ago, according to data published this Monday by the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI).
The consumer price index (CPI) continues, however, well below that registered in October 2024, when it was 28.09%. The monthly variation compared to the previous month was 0.96% and the accumulated variation was 11.94%.
By category, the year-on-year increase in Alcoholic Beverages and Tobacco (104.22%) stood out, followed by Restaurants and Hotels (23.54%), Education (16.84%), Housing Services (14.44%), Food and Non-Alcoholic Beverages (14.33%), Miscellaneous Goods and Services (13.38%), and Furniture and Household Items (13.37%).
The Communications sector (0.47%) remains the least inflationary category despite the strong rise in rates applied on May 30, which substantially raised the prices of additional mobile phone recharges, generating protests and controversy, indicates a report from EFE.
According to estimates by Cuban economist Pavel Vidal, real inflation on the island in 2025, which unlike the monthly reports of the ONEI, includes prices in the largest and best-stocked informal market, “would be around 70%.”
Inflation has tripled prices on the island since 2020, according to official statistics. The consumer price index (CPI) closed in 2021 above 77%; while in 2022 it stood at 39.07%; in 2023, at 31.34%, and in 2024, at 24.88%.
Cuba is mired in a serious economic and energy crisis, visible in the shortage of basic products such as food, medicine and fuel, high and rampant inflation, economic contraction, growing dollarization and prolonged daily blackouts.
The economy contracted 1.1% in 2024 and, underlines EFEadds a cumulative drop of 11% in the last five years, according to official data. ECLAC also expects its gross domestic product (GDP) to be negative this year.
The combination of the covid-19 pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions since the first Donald Trump Administration (2017-2021) and the failed national economic and monetary policies have aggravated the structural problems of the Cuban economy.
The situation has caused social unrest, evident in the unusual protests of recent years and in a wave of migration unprecedented in scale and duration.
