Cubans go out to buy dollars after the government lifted the ban

Large groups of people gathered outside Havana’s official financial branches on Tuesday buy dollars and euros on the first day of the reopening of the foreign exchange market, closed for two years.

The population you can buy up to $ 100 a day or its equivalent in other currencies – euros, Mexican pesos, British pounds.

With this, the government tries to control the illegal and currency market lower the exchange rate, as the high demand for foreign banknotes has brought their price well above the official value and triggered inflation in commodities.

This is the second part of some sort of normalization of the Cuban currency market that began earlier this month when authorities announced that they would buy foreign currency from private individuals at a price similar to that of the black marketthat is 110.40 Cuban pesos per dollar at that time.

parallel and official

However, the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel has maintained the official rate of 24 Cuban pesos per dollar for the operations of state-owned companies, the basis of the island’s economy.

“I want them so I can buy jam for my grandchildren, (hopefully) all those who can save something or struggling to acquire it can get some foreign currency to solve the problems, ” Maricela Prado, a 62-year-old state worker who was among the first to buy euros at an exchange house in the center, told The Associated Press. of Havana. .

A little further on, even the driver Alberto Alvarado considered the measure to be good. However, Juan Pérez, a 32-year-old cameraman, described the decision as “bad”, because due to the limitation of the quantity for sale it will only increase the prices of dollars on the black market.

Since the beginning of 2021, when a monetary reform was launched to eliminate dual currencies – until then the Cuban peso and the convertible peso existed – the authorities have stopped selling dollars and other currencies to the population.

In addition, officials later reported that the country he had no foreign currency to sell to people in the context of a deep economic crisis resulting from the arrest due to the COVID-19 pandemic and US sanctions, to which was added the low productivity of the domestic industry.

Although the official rate was set at 24 pesos per dollar in early 2021, as there was no supply – as the island’s entire banking and exchange system is state-owned – the US currency and other currencies an escalation began which reached 120 Cuban pesos per dollar on the black market earlier this month.

critics

“These are insufficient and partial measures and instead of leading to the solution of the problems of the economy, delay the serious crisis that has lasted for more than three decades ”considered the economist and professor at the Javeriana University of Cali, Mauricio de Miranda on his Facebook page.

Cubans are looking for foreign currencies to top up debit cards which allow them to purchase basic groceries in specialty stores. Also to buy abroad – especially in Panama and Mexico – products that are then resold on the island and pay for expensive trips to emigrate.

As foreign currency has become more expensive on the black market, the prices of food bought in specialty stores and supplies brought in from abroad have increased, hit the pockets of the population it suffers from inflation and the scarcity of basic necessities.

On Monday evening, the deputy prime minister and head of the economy and the director of the Central Bank of Cuba reported on television that as of this Tuesday, $ 100 per person per day would be sold in 37 licensed exchange houses. at a rate of 123.60 pesos per unit of US currency.

Officials explained that only the amount the branch had raised the previous day would be sold. giving turns to the population.

At the branch that AP visited early Tuesday morning, the provincial director of exchange houses, who identified herself as Kenya Katiuska Mesa, informed a hundred people at the door that 190 rounds would be delivered.

for Miranda “the informal foreign exchange market will continue to be healthy” with limited sale of $ 100 per person.

“As long as urgent, partial and disconnected measures continue to be adopted … instead of a program of structural, global and systemic reforms, it will not be possible to overcome the current internal obstacles that hinder the economic development of Cuba”, added the minister. .

AP Agency

PB