None of the many people who were queuing this Wednesday at a bank in Central Havana was going to deposit dollars, something that can be done starting this Tuesday by disposition of the Central Bank of Cuba. On the contrary, they were suspicious of the new government measure, which reverses a “temporary” ban issued in 2021.
When a young man in his thirties entered, intending to deposit $100, an elderly man in line dissuaded him from doing so. “When deposited, it automatically becomes MLC [moneda libremente convertible], and the change is one to one,” said the man, who countered that the US currency is paid much better on the black market. “An MLC is a virtual dollar, it does not compensate. As far as I’m concerned, at least, I wouldn’t dream of putting the dollars in a bank. I exchange them on the street for pesos and with that I buy food “. And he joked:” The dollar was imprisoned and now they released him “, before the young man was convinced and left the branch.
Meanwhile, on San Rafael Boulevard, money changers seem to be flourishing. to the left, something that was common around the official exchange houses (Cadeca), such as the one near Neptuno Street. “I don’t know if this is because of that measure or what, but they weren’t here before,” says a neighbor of the place. “They are desperate to buy dollars from foreigners.”
“I exchange them on the street for pesos and with that I buy food.” And he joked: “the dollar was imprisoned and now they released it”
The experts, for their part, have criticized the umpteenth monetary lurch of the Cuban government and link it to the failure of the so-called Ordering Task (the restriction on depositing dollars coincided with the first months of implementation of that policy). So, Pedro Monreal: “The components of the ‘regulation’ (monetary and exchange rate unification, macro-devaluation of the peso, end of subsidies, increase in wages and prices) ended up enhancing the effects of the pandemic and placing the country in a ‘stagflation’ of which there is no a solution is in sight, says the Cuban economist in a Twitter thread, also listing: “Capped prices, partial dollarization, import rackets on-line, Stunted foreign exchange markets, inspectorates, and now the re-acceptance of USD [dólares] in banks, these are actions that are not only marginal but also contradict the model of ‘regulation'”.
Several economists consulted by the Spanish agency EFE have also expressed their doubts in the same sense. For example, Elías Amor, who wonders, given that he has returned to the same point as two years ago: “What sense did the Ordering Task have with the economic and social costs that it has had?”
Or Mauricio de Miranda, also Cuban, professor and researcher at the Pontificia Universidad Javeriana in Cali (Colombia), who states: “The system has totally failed. Poorly conceived, poorly designed and poorly implemented.”
For him, in reality, there was never a “true unification” of money, and in this regard he cites the opening of MLC stores in 2019. “It is a very serious problem because the population is earning in a currency (CUP) with which it cannot buy all the goods that are on the market. This is inadmissible from a social and political point of view,” he recalls.
As the island’s authorities assured at the time, the Ordering Task, in force since January 2021, intended to end the dual currency in force until then (the Cuban peso or CUP and the convertible or CUC, artificially equal to the dollar). .
Both the ban on greenback deposits and the reform itself gave a boost to the informal foreign exchange market. The change on the street went from 70 pesos per dollar, in mid-2021, to 185 this Wednesday, far from the official rate (for individuals) of 120 pesos per dollar.
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