MIAMI, United States.- The Cuban regime announced this Wednesday that they will begin to buy all foreign currency, including dollars in cash, from tomorrow, August 4, but that for the moment they will not sell them to the population.
This is how he explained it on television Round table the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, who added that the government will buy the foreign currency at a higher exchange rate than the official 24×1 currently in force.
According to the minister of the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC), Marta Wilson González, that state agency will buy the dollars at 120 Cuban pesos. According to the explanation, people will receive about 110 pesos for every dollar due to the commercial margin of the banks.
For each euro, meanwhile, it will be 119.69 pesos; for the Canadian dollar, 91.54 pesos; the pound sterling, 143.17 pesos; one Mexican peso, 5.67 pesos; and for a Swiss franc, 122.96 pesos.
Wilson González also explained that the BCC will stimulate the electronic purchase of foreign currency and not that of bills, since there is no capacity to issue them; and that people will be able to sell their currencies from foreign transfers and from MLC accounts.
Those who sell their currencies will receive the Cuban pesos in their accounts in Cuban pesos (CUP).
For his part, he added that these transactions cannot be made at ATMs because they are not yet ready.
“We are going to buy in the provinces and fundamental municipalities. There are 40 municipalities that will not offer that service,” he said.
Alejandro Gil also assured that the 1×120 exchange rate and legality will be the greatest attraction for people to sell their currencies. “There is a lowering of prices in national currency when you exchange currencies.”
“This measure does not generate any justification to increase prices at all. We are talking about buying foreign currency and giving Cuban pesos in exchange,” he announced.
“The biggest cost today is not having the foreign currency. The essential thing here is the offer in national currency. We have to expand the offers in the national currency. The fiscal deficit must be controlled. It is not a magic measure, it is an essential measure. The exchange rate of 120 is not equilibrium when we start selling it will go there. We will have to set a limit,” said the Castro minister.
According to Gil, it is illegal not to accept the national currency in establishments in Cuba, which is why “we have to unite to give value to our currency. Whoever has a dollar in his hand, a euro can change it to the State. Later we will take the step to the sale”.
In this regard, he added: “We are going to venture into the sale of foreign currency to the population when there are purchase and sale operations.”
In the most recent session of the National Assembly of People’s Power, the Cuban minister had announced that the Government would create a foreign exchange market to increase the income of resources, today he explained that “it will not be immediately. That will be later,” he said on national television, without giving an exact date.
Alejandro Gil affirmed during his speech at the Round Table that “all the currency that we capture is based on that equity and social justice that allows us to give meaning to socialism. The measure puts its feet on the ground to capture these currencies based on society. Like everything, it does not have an immediate effect.
The purpose of this new mechanism is, he stressed, “to produce more supply in pesos that stimulates the exchange of foreign currencies for Cuban pesos”, so people will legally carry out the exchanges that take place today informally.
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