Madrid/The remittances to Cuba barely reached 1,113.45 million dollars in 2024, 43.43% less than in 2023, according to the calculations of the last report published by Cuba Century 21 and signed by the economist Emilio Morales, which warns that the Partial dollarization announced by the authorities is nothing more than an attempt to recover the currency that is escaping.
As there was already MORALS ADVANCED IN THE DOCUMENT last December, the Business Administration Group (GAESA) controlled by the military barely retained 7.32% of remittances, 81.6 million dollars, while the remaining 92.68% run through the informal channels, 1,031 , 85 million. The collapse is spectacular, especially if compared to 2019, when the amount amounted to 3,716.71 million dollars.
“This huge decline has had a strong impact on the country’s economy, since remittances are the main support of more than a third of the Cuban population and its circulation in retail markets in turn feeds MSMEs and self -employed workers, ”says Morales.
The collapse is spectacular, especially if compared to 2019, when the amount amounted to 3,716.71 million dollars
The document includes a graph that allows to visualize the generalized fall of the total amount: there was only one year worse since 2010: that of the pandemic. This does not actually affect the population, which has found other paths to receive the currency and without the relatively high commissions charged by intermediaries in the process, Western Union mostly. The coup is for the coffers of Gaesa, which has been seen, in addition “forced at a certain time to share the great cake of the retail market” with the private sector.
In addition, a note published yesterday in 14ymedio He reviewed an analysis of former Economy Minister José Luis Rodríguez, who pointed out “a replacement of dollars in cash for shipments in kind (especially food).”
For Morales, the measures announced in the last year related to price stop, tax increases, import regulations or limitations in wholesale trade and for self -employed workers have the same purpose as dollarization: favor GAESA. The purpose is, it affects that its companies can recover control of the dollar retail market and its bank does the same with the exchange market.
The first establishment with dollars that became popular on the island was the one located at the basement of the Muthu Havana Hotel, The 3rd and 70 supermarketopened as soon as you start this year. His good march has encouraged the regime to extend the model, although he already had it decided, since the prime minister himself, Manuel Marrero, announced it at the end of 2024 in Parliament. From now on, Cimex and Caribbean stores They will open hundreds of similar establishmentsup to 7% of all its shops, which will be foreseeably as well as this.
For Morales, the objective is, “only and exclusively, meet Gaesa’s parasitic needs,” which faces a “growing financial bankruptcy.”
For Morales, the objective is, “only and exclusively, meet Gaesa’s parasitic needs”, which faces a “growing financial bankruptcy”
In the report, Cuba century stands out the importance of MSMEs As a competition of Gaesa, although they are not part – he adds – of “a movement with economic freedom, nor having developed in a market environment with adequate incentives and conditions that allow the real development of a genuine private sector in the country ”
Despite this, they have become an inconvenience for the military conglomerate, since, in addition, they “rebel”, in the opinion of Morales, against banking. The gesture reveals, according to the report, distrust in banking institutions, although the data indicates that state companies have also been tailored to the measure.
The document also analyzes the function of an indispensable factor in the equation: the emigrants, who are the ones who decide not to send the money and choose to get their family out of Cuba, either by the informal networks. “Remittances do not depend on the will of the regime or its productive apparatus, but – exclusive – on the will of those who send them from abroad. And that will has broken, ”he warns.
Another element, in this external case, are international sanctions. Morales considers that it is bad news for the regime that the Donald Trump administration has incorporated to Orbit – the company that manages remittances in substitution of the previously sanctioned Fincimex – to the list of entities with which business cannot be done. However, the global impact can be minimal, since the report itself recognizes that the money that transits through this channel is less than 8%.
However, the global impact can be minimal, since the report itself recognizes that the money that transits through this channel is less than 8%
Morales loads against regime measures, including high rates on documents such as simple passport, and insists that only through “the total release of productive forces, starting with agriculture and its entire productive and distribution apparatus” can be satisfied The needs of Cubans. To this, it continues, we would have to add measures that promote the investment of the emigrants, also in large companies, and, above all, “demolish the Gaesa monopoly.”
“The remittance market has suffered a strong derailment, similar to that of the sugar industry, which practically does not exist, and very similar to that which is suffering right now the tourism industry,” summarizes in conclusions in which the lack of of will and the immobility of the government, which prevent solutions.
“The Gaesa oligarchy has despised the opportunity to convert remittances into an asset to stimulate external investment and develop the country,” concludes the document.
