Published on : 23/08/2022 – 10:57
The Cuban government will start selling dollars to its people starting this Tuesday, August 23. An announcement that comes twenty days following starting to buy them at the black market price, with the intention of creating an official foreign exchange market in the country.
« We will start selling currencies from tomorrow “, announced the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, during a broadcast on state television. This measure aims to build a forex market ” in the country ” which allows a legal exchange of money which in turn will increase the purchasing power associated with the national currency, said Alejandro Gil.
A significant part of the Cuban population receives dollars – sent by relatives living abroad or from services rendered to tourists visiting the island – which they then exchange most often on the black market, and which therefore pass completely alongside the official economy. With the intention of extracting the circulation of these currencies from the black market, the President of the Central Bank Marta Sabina Wilson had announced August 4 last that banks and exchange offices were now going to buy dollars at the rate of 120 pesos per greenback – that of informal exchanges at the beginning of August -, once morest 24 pesos for the official rate.
According to the President of the Central Bank, this measure had “ a favorable outcome “. In twenty days, financial institutions have ” bought ten times more currency than they would have bought in a month with the exchange rate at 24 pesos “, did she say. For the sale of dollars, ” the exchange rate taken into account is maintained at 120 pesos “, she clarified.
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The sale of dollars reserved for citizens
The American currency has soared on the black market since the implementation in Cuba, in January 2021, of an economic reform fixing the rate of the dollar at 24 pesos, and the suspension last June of the sale of dollars to population due to lack of cash. Only branches of Cadeca, the official Cuban exchange offices, will be authorized to sell dollars, and they “ will only sell what they have bought “, specified the president of the Central Bank. The sale of dollars will also be reserved for citizens, and not for small and medium-sized businesses, she said. And the acquisition will be limited to 100 dollars per person.
On Monday, the rate on the black market was 140 pesos to the dollar, but Alejandro Gil said he was determined to maintain the rate of 120 pesos for purchases and sales by the state: We will defend the exchange rate of 120 pesos. We are going to find a way for the State, which is now participating in the sales operations, to be able to defend this rate “, he said.
Cuba is currently going through its worst economic crisis in thirty years, with a growing shortage of food, medicine and fuel, due to the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic and the tightening of the United States economic embargo.
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(with AFP)
