{"id":204308,"date":"2019-08-16T13:58:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-16T17:58:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=204308"},"modified":"2019-08-16T13:58:18","modified_gmt":"2019-08-16T17:58:18","slug":"cuban-minister-nobody-can-use-ruses-to-raise-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/cuban-minister-nobody-can-use-ruses-to-raise-prices\/","title":{"rendered":"Cuban minister: nobody can use “ruses” to raise prices"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cuban Minister of Finance and Prices Meisi Bola\u00f1os said that both the state and private sectors must comply without \u201cruses\u201d the <\/span>provisions that limit the price<\/span><\/a> of numerous products and services throughout the island.<\/span><\/p>\n

“No economic actor can increase prices,” said Bola\u00f1os, who added that the authorities will be “rigorous” with “those who try, through ruses, to evade and violate the new measures approved to avoid the increase in prices.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The minister’s statements to the press this Monday refer to the strategies implemented by several private establishments, in which some of the ceiling-priced products such as beer started being sold together with others such as cold cuts, fried tubers and croquettes\u2015in the so-called “combos”\u2015to increase their price.<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo.php?fbid=10219868732052961&set=a.10219868732492972&type=3<\/p>\n

Given this situation, Bola\u00f1os asked the population to “timely” denounce the place and the moment in which “abuse” with prices is committed. “For example,” she said, “where it is confirmed that the combo is a ruse to increase prices, the corresponding measures will be rigorously applied.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The minister also said that contrary to “some malicious criteria,” the objective of the limits imposed “is not to curb the development of non-state forms” but “to avoid the increase in rates that do not correspond to an increase in costs, as well as regulate those already excessive prices.”<\/span><\/p>\n

She explained that her ministry “is clear” that the work of the private sector is limited “by the non-generalization of the wholesale market,” but said that the price regulation applied to date has been carried out “on the basis of studies and reviewing performances, not only of costs and expenses, but of the inhabitants\u2019 economic capacity, without ignoring the influence of the principle of supply and demand.”<\/span><\/p>\n

As for the state sector, the minister specified that the products that make up the standardized family basket maintain the “centralized” prices thanks to the state subsidy, while others that are sold in a liberated manner such as oil, chicken and minced meat have “special regimes” updated since 2016.<\/span><\/p>\n

She said that “although there is a group of products whose prices are high for the population\u2019s level of purchasing power, most of them, fundamentally food products, are sold only at cost or with a commercial margin that does not exceed 1.30.”<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition, she commented that if “there are products that exceed the commercial indices of the economic line” it is “because there are others that can replace them” and stressed the need to “maintain the production of goods and a stable supply” for price stability.<\/span><\/p>\n

Evitando la inflaci\u00f3n<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n