CDMX.- The Cuban regime has announced the expansion of Stores that operate exclusively in dollars Americans (USD) throughout the country, as part of a process to partially dollarize the national economy.
This measure, as announced on Wednesday, January 29 in The round tableis part of a strategy to face the current economic crisis.
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 foreign exchange. It will be taken into account that the establishments have the minimum conditions necessary to guarantee the safety and control of this currency.
In the new commercial establishments there will be imported products and others of national production and may be acquired paying in cash.
“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.
Sale in dollars of essential products was divlgated at the end of 2024 when they opened A supermarket located 3rd and 70in the municipality of Playa, Havana, which only admitted currencies. The center was supplied with products that are scarce in the country and that not even in MLC it was common to find them.
In addition to the supermarket, the sale in dollars was tested at the beginning of last year in Servicenters and its associated stores. Subsequently, sales centers such as Havano and Duty Free Airports were added. In January the measure was extended to car marketing.
Contradictory to the measures that the same officials announced, Mildrey Granadillo de la Torre, Vice Minister First of Economics and Planning, said that the Government’s interest is not to dollarize. “We ratify that the government program seeks to move towards defolarization of the economy. However, we have evaluated international experiences that demonstrate that forced defolarization, without the creation of previous conditions, could lead to more negative effects for the Cuban economy than those facing today. ”
For his part Quiñones Betancourt said that the accounts in MLC Those accounts called MLC are maintained and supported “the commitment of the banks on the obligations with their clients, based on the funds they have represented or the funds they may have in the future.”
As for the supply of these, Cimex’s first vice president said that stores in MLC will be priority. The official said that this new network of dollars in dollars should not exceed 7% among all the businesses with Cimex and Caribbean stores.
On October 16, 2019, the then Minister of Economy Alejandro Gil He also announced in the Trus Redonda program they would start selling appliances and automotive products in freely convertible currency (MLC). At that time he pointed out: “We do not have the claim to eliminate national currencies or expand sales in dollars or in any foreign currency to the rest of the retail network, or to earn more spaces in sales in dollars.”
A few months later, most indispensable goods such as food and cleaning were marketed in MLC. At that time they assured that what was collected in MLC would serve to supply the stores in national currency. That never happened, but MLC stores did not stop spreading throughout the country. And apparently we are facing a very similar scenario, only this time, the MLC was changed to the dollar.
Let us point out that citizens receive their very low salaries in national currency, and that it is practically impossible to go to a bank or a exchange house and turn Cuban weights into a foreign currency.
What do experts say?
The reintroduction of the dollar in certain sectors of the Cuban economy is framed in a context of persistent 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.
In this regard, 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.”
The economist explained that they are wrong to define the capture of currencies 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.
“Partial dollarization is a new error and will not be able to lead to defolarization (no more missing) precisely because if the objective is to capture currencies and nothing is done for the economy to generate them as a result of the development of its productive system, they will continue to seek Income in the sphere of circulation, as they have done so far, depending on transfers from abroad; Which, by the way, has made us a much more dependent country, ”he said.
For the expert the result of these measures will not be positive for the population. “It is clear that everything is on a bad way, because that only points to surviving an economy model that not only does not ensure growth and development, but perpetuates underdevelopment and deepens poverty, at the expense of the bureaucracy to keep its ability to manage, control and assign, or in other words, keep your power. ”
