Cuban Regime Admits Flour Shortage for Bread in Basic Basket, Along with Growing Blackouts: Latest Updates

2024-02-26 03:01:00
The Cuban regime admitted that there will be a lack of flour for bread in the basic basket (EFE/Ernesto Mastrascusa)

The Cuban regime recognized that it will not be able to guarantee subsidized bread from the basic basket until the end of March due to a shortage of wheat flour, according to official media reported this Sunday.

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The Ministry of the Food Industry (Minal) stated that the lack of bread offered through the ration card is due to “specific situations” with “planned shipments”, without giving more details on the matter.

The island imports around 80% of the products it consumes. And in recent years it has closed agreements with allied countries, such as Russia, to guarantee the entry of wheat flour to make bread, a basic good in the Cuban diet.

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“In the coming days, bread production will be severely affected in each territory, due to instability in the supply of raw materials,” explained the commercial director of the state-owned Milling Company, Zaily Pérez Hernández, quoted by the official website. Cubadebate.

He added that the Cuban food industry is not exempt from the consequences of the United States economic embargo and that the arrival of ships is “more complex.”

The Cuban regime assures that the island’s economic crisis is due to the US embargo (REUTERS/Alexandre Meneghini)

The Caribbean country has five mills to process wheat: three in Havana, one in Santiago de Cuba (east) and another in Cienfuegos (southeast). At the moment the latter is the only asset and only produces 250 tons of flour per day.

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Cuba requires 20,000 tons monthly just to produce bread for the regulated family basket, according to Cubadebate.

The president of the Food Industry Business Group, Emerio González Lorenzo, added that the Ministry is looking for alternatives with other state organizations and small and medium-sized private companies (MSMEs).

According to UN data, Cuba spends about 2 billion dollars annually to import the food it consumes.

The basic basket is the package of subsidized food that corresponds to each Cuban through the ration card.

The crisis with the distribution of bread coincides with the return of blackouts due to fuel shortages in the last two months.

Cuba suffers from serious shortages of food and medicine, as well as frequent power outages, rampant inflation and partial dollarization of the economy.

This situation is due to the confluence of the pandemic, the tightening of US sanctions and errors in economic and monetary policy.

Blackouts continue in Cuba (EFE/Alejandro Ernesto)

The Cuban state company Unión Eléctrica (UNE) estimated simultaneous blackouts for this Sunday in almost 32% of the island in the afternoon-night hours, the time of highest consumption, a trend towards high rates of impact attributed mainly to the deficit of electricity. fuels.

The country’s energy situation remained favorable at the end of last year, but in 2024 service cuts have increased. Since the end of January, the damage has ranged between 20 and more than 30% of the territory.

According to the UNE, the main causes are the “unavailability” of fuel and breakdowns in several terrestrial thermoelectric plants.

In its daily report, the Ministry of Energy and Mines company calculates for the ‘peak’ time of this day, an electrical generation capacity of 1,945 megawatts (MW) and a maximum demand of 2,800 MW.

(With information from EFE)

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