Madrid/The war against The Touch has returned as quickly as the very strong rise of the dollar in recent weeks in the informal currency market, followed by an unusual setback with the arrival of Hurricane Melissa. The revaluation of the greenback seemed unstoppable from 360 pesos registered in May to 490 at the end of October. And yet, less than a week after reaching its all-time high, the dollar has retreated to 430 pesos in what appears to be more of a truce than a change in bullish dynamics.
This is not the regime’s first campaign against The Touchwhich for years has been publishing updated trends in the informal currency market. The attacks, through the official press and social networks, were always sharpen that the upward trend of the currency is accelerating.
This time, the starting signal was given by Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez last Saturday, when he published in X a diatribe against the independent media, behind which he places Washington directly. “The US Government organizes, finances and directly executes a comprehensive destabilization program, as part of its economic war against Cuba, with the employment of operators of Cuban origin based in US territory and other countries,” he wrote.
According to the minister, “its mission is to depress the population’s income level through speculative manipulation”
According to the minister, “its mission is to depress the income level of the population through speculative manipulation of the currency exchange rate, with a direct effect on the growth of prices, the spread of intimidating and alarmist messages on networks, and thus altering the natural behavior of the market.” In the message, Rodríguez stated that this causes severe damage to the population’s income and affects the macroeconomy. “This involves laundering money from the US federal budget, using funds allocated by the United States Congress and used by the State Department, non-governmental organizations and contractors that channel it,” he said.
With the ban open, Cuban economist Andrés Martínez Ravelo continues on that path, publishing an opinion article in September 5. The Cienfuegos expert accuses The Touch to “penetrate the economic logic of the country, displacing the legitimate monetary institutions.” Although there have been numerous occasions in which experts have reproached the Central Bank of Cuba for abandoning its functions as the highest authority of monetary policy by leaving its powers in the hands of the Government, the expert maintains that it is The Touch who usurps his mission and invades state sovereignty.
“The Central Bank maintains an official rate of 1 dollar = 120 pesos. However, that rate has been eclipsed by the Informal Market Representative Rate (TRMI), published by a website that operates from abroad and that has assumed the de facto role of exchange marker,” attacks the economist, oblivious to what this summer Minister Joaquín Alonso Vázquez highlighted during a meeting that the Government He is the first to use that reference when making very similar calculations.
Minister Joaquín Alonso Vázquez made it clear during a meeting that the Government is the first to use that reference
At that time, Pavel Vidal himself, the Cuban economist at the head of the Observatory of Currencies and Finance of Cuba (OMFi), considered that this was the confirmation that “for those responsible for economic policy, the value and trajectory of the price of the dollar in the informal market is a useful and necessary reference.”
Martínez Ravelo, however, states that “there is no other documented case in which a digital platform without headquarters in the country, financed by foreign agencies” imposes a reference. The economist reviews the latest statistics, which indicate that from January to October the dollar went from 265 pesos to 490, while the euro went from 280 to 540 pesos. “This sustained increase has had a direct impact on the decrease in the purchasing power of Cubans’ pockets, due to its influence on the real prices of goods and services,” he reproaches.
In his opinion, private companies – which represent 55% of retail sales – “adjust their prices to maintain profit margins in foreign currency,” he indicates, a dynamic that is not reflected in the consumer price index (CPI), “which is not related to the daily perception of citizens.”
The economist dedicates two paragraphs to the recurring official discourse on US pressures, economic war, destabilization, the CIA and the NED, until reaching his conclusion: Cuba’s monetary sovereignty “has been kidnapped by those who design and finance the aberration that they themselves propagate.”
Although the text has not yet been responded to by those mentioned, this Monday the economist Pedro Monreal entered the debate to respond to the chancellor. “Someone should explain to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that the devaluation of the peso in the informal market, and the informal market itself, mainly express the failure of the ‘design’ of the ‘organization’. Murillo can surely enlighten them on the subject by repeating what he said in October 2021,” he says.
Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced before the Cuban Parliament the expected establishment of a floating rate for the peso
At the end of last year, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced before the Cuban Parliament the expected establishment of a floating rate for the peso, although even then there were several Cuban economists who pointed out the difficulties for such a process. In August, Vidal advised that the Government place the new exchange rate at 400, approximately the most common then in the informal market and close to the one that the Ministry was using, without saying so.
At that time – and coinciding with a rise in the price of the dollar – the economist took the opportunity to claim for the umpteenth time the null influence of the OMFi on the value of money. “It is the umpteenth confirmation that the indicator offered The Touch “It does not interfere speculatively, but merely reflects the trends and needs of the exchange market.”
