Monetary order in Cuba will contribute to economic transformations

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 11 (ACN) The Cuban economy, hit by the tightening of the US blockade and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, enters a new stage as of January 1, 2021 with the implementation of the monetary order.

Army General Raúl Castro and President Miguel Díaz-Canel announced this process on Thursday, by which the CUC convertible peso will be eliminated from circulation and the single exchange rate will be 24 pesos to one dollar.

The measure seeks to create better conditions for the transformations demanded by the Cuban economic-social model, with equal opportunities for all by promoting interest and motivation for work without equalitarianism.
The regulation includes the devaluation of the Cuban peso in the circuit of legal entities, the increase in prices, the elimination of undue subsidies and gratuities, and the increase in salaries and pensions as part of a transformation of income.

Experts consider that this is the most important structural transformation of the Cuban economy in the last 30 years, after in the 1990s, with the fall of the socialist field, it decriminalized the use of the dollar as a measure to recover the levels of productive activity.

In 1993, the partial dollarization of the Cuban economy took place and a network of stores (TRD) was organized for the retail sale of products and services in dollars.

A decade later, the Central Bank of Cuba eliminates the circulation of the US dollar in the state sector and authorizes the circulation of only two national currencies: the Cuban Peso and the convertible. At that time, exchange rates were established, one for individuals and another for legal entities.

In 2013, the Council of Ministers put into effect the schedule for the implementation of the measures that will lead to monetary and exchange rate unification. From that moment on, a series of progressive actions were implemented, which included the introduction of high-denomination bills, payment in CUPs in foreign currency stores, among others.

After the announcement of the beginning of the ordering task, the Official Gazette of the Republic published several extraordinary editions in which there are legal norms that implement this process.

Among the legal texts published were the establishment of new prices and rates for products and services, the updating of the new amounts to be charged in the salary and pension scales and the transformations in banking services.
During the following days the population will be informed about details of the implementation of these legal norms.