HAVANA, Cuba.- More quickly than many thought, the Cuban ruling party took advantage of one of the usual Round Tables on television to report that the implementation of the exchange market was completed.
As of August 23, the country’s financial system began selling freely convertible currency (MLC) to the population. A type of operation that complements the experiment that had begun at the beginning of the current month of August, with the purchase by the banks of the currencies that natural persons and other non-state economic actors wanted to sell.
As reported, the government will not make any allocation of foreign currency for sale to the population. The freely convertible currency that is offered to natural persons will be exclusively the one that the banks buy from the previous sales made by the citizens and the rest of the actors.
There is a significant detail that we cannot ignore. Both the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, and the president of the Central Bank of Cuba, Marta Wilson, who were the panelists of the aforementioned Round Table, insisted that the sale of MLC will be carried out in the CADECA network and not in The airports.
The foregoing indicates that the authorities intend to collect the excess of national currency that is in circulation, without an adequate counterpart in goods and services, which constitutes one of the sources that fuel inflation, and for this reason they will only sell MLC to Cubans on the island, who will pay in national currency, and not to foreigners who arrive in the country. It must be taken into account that this measure to complete the foreign exchange market coincides with what various sources report, in the sense that Cuba occupies the second place in the world with the worst rate of inflation.
Then we must agree that this facility that is offered to Cubans on the island is not really a “kindness” towards our compatriots, as the panelists of the aforementioned television space wanted to make us see. It is a well-thought-out move to achieve a goal that so far, with their chronic lack of offers, they have not been able to achieve.
The resounding rejection of both panelists to the possibility that the dollars that the population acquires can be transferred to the magnetic cards that allow purchases in the stores in MLC. And if the refusal was resounding, the justification for it was disconcerting: it cannot be done because of the “blockade” of the United States. Thus, without providing a convincing explanation, the Cuban rulers, once again, resort to their “cloth of tears” that exonerates them from responsibilities.
There is no shortage of those who believe that this refusal to accept “Cuban” dollars to recharge magnetic cards is due to the shortage that stores in MLC also exhibit, and that urges the authorities not to increase the demand for them.
Everything indicates that the greatest buying pressure will be on the euro and the other currencies that can be transferred to magnetic cards. Dollars, on the other hand, will be preferred by those who plan to emigrate or make an occasional trip abroad.
In any case, the way in which MLC is going to be sold, which will always be scarce since it will depend on the purchases that the banks have previously made, is going to make possible the favoritism and corruption of CADECA employees. In the end, two anomalies inherent in any step taken by the Castro economy.
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