In a recent balance meeting of the Central Bank of Cuba, the Prime Minister of the Republic, Manuel Marrero Cruz, highlighted the importance of facing the challenges of the country’s monetary and exchange rate policy.
The Cuban leader emphasized the urgent need to eliminate exchange rate duality and expressed concern about the impact that the illegal exchange rate has on the population, affecting prices and inflation.
Generally, urged to the formulation of proposals for:
– The determination of the exchange rate: “it is an issue that is gaining a lot of pressure, especially the elimination of exchange rate duality, starting with the official rate of 1 USD = 24/120 and exploring where we are heading,” he said.
– The illegal exchange rate: “also generates greater concern in the population, mainly because of how this exchange rate influences the structuring of prices,” he noted.
In this way, the Cuban leader once again referred to a crucial issue for the country. During his intervention in the Second Ordinary Period of Sessions of the National Assembly of People’s Power in its Tenth Legislature, on December 20, 2023, the Cuban prime minister spoke about the need to “resize the exchange market, intervene in the informal market and control the exchange rate.”
Official exchange rate in Cuba: when?
“We must put an end to the situation in which from a foreign country and through a computer the exchange rate that will govern in our country is projected; This must stop!,” he said.
Likewise, he assured that “this exchange rate, which is totally speculative, is the one used as a reference to establish all the abusive prices that prevail in the national market today.”
Let us remember, however, that when the official exchange market was announced in 2022 with a rate of 1 USD per 120 CUP, the informal rate was around 110 Cuban pesos.
Gil Fernández, at that time, justified that it was not possible to go to the market with the official rate due to the amount of foreign currency that would be needed, which would force other economic priorities to be sacrificed.
As of today, the new official rate has not materialized. Right now, the value of the USD It continues to increase in the informal market, where it is exchanged at around 348 CUP. While the official exchange rate of the same currency remains at 120 Cuban pesos (CUP).
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