The Cuban President, Miguel Diaz-Canelrecognized the “extraordinarily complex” economic scenario that the country has gone through in recent years and that has generated “dissatisfaction” in the population, according to the official press on Wednesday.
Díaz-Canel, who also chairs the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal party on the island), admitted during the VI plenary session of the formation that “in recent months a group of situations have become more complex, such as problems of electricity generation and the fuel deficit.
The president referred, according to versions of the Presidency, to “states of opinion of the people in which dissatisfaction with what we do and have done, with the measures and the manner of their implementation are reflected.”
Cuba is going through a serious economic crisis, worsened for three years, and which is reflected in the shortage of food, medicine and fuel, the partial dollarization of the economy, the depreciation of the Cuban peso, frequent blackouts and an accelerated increase in prices.
The effects of the pandemic, the increase in US sanctions and failures in national macroeconomic policy are the main causes of this crisis, which is fueling migration -mainly to the US- and social discontent.
In this regard, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, recognized “the lack of expected and necessary results in national production” and in “exports of goods and services, foreign investment and efficiency in the investment process.”
Gil said at the same PCC meeting that it has been “complex” to achieve “macroeconomic stabilization.”
He mentioned “the high levels of inflation, the distortion of prices, the loss of purchasing power of salaries and pensions and the depreciation of the currency in the informal exchange rate.”
The plenary session of the Central Committee, the highest governing body of the single party on the island, took place the day before at the Palace of the Revolution.
In it, the Organization Secretary of the PCC, Roberto Morales, also spoke of the “partial dollarization” of the Cuban economy and the “depreciation of the national currency” among “other” problems.
Year-on-year inflation in the formal market in Cuba stood at 39.07% in 2022, spurred by food and restaurants, according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information.
This organization does not collect data on the evolution of the Cuban informal market, where some prices of basic products have tripled in the last 12 months.
Some estimates place inflation in the informal market in 2021 at around 500%. EFE