{"id":232213,"date":"2020-12-24T10:47:50","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T15:47:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=232213"},"modified":"2020-12-24T11:15:06","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T16:15:06","slug":"monetary-unification-putting-accounts-in-order","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/monetary-unification-putting-accounts-in-order\/","title":{"rendered":"Monetary unification: putting accounts in order"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Ramiro found out about the new electricity rate that will be in force in Cuba as of January 1, as part of the <\/span>monetary reorganization<\/span><\/a> process, he lost sleep for a few days.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI started to do the math and couldn\u2019t sleep,\u201d this 51-year-old electronics technician, who works in a state appliance repair shop in Havana, confesses to <\/span>OnCuba<\/b>. His new salary will be over 3,000 pesos, but only in electricity he can spend more than 2,000, if he does not manage to lower his household consumption from the more than 350 Kwh usually devoured by his family, made up of his housewife wife, his mother-in-law , now old and sick, and his daughter, who is studying at the university. \u201cAnd if you add to that the prices at the agricultural market, those of anything on the black market and even those of the supplies on the ration book, I don\u2019t know where we\u2019re going to end up, and I don\u2019t have someone to send me dollars from abroad,\u201d he says.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s true that until now his salary was not enough, not even with his mother-in-law\u2019s pension\u2015which will also go up\u2015and what his wife \u201cinvents,\u201d so \u201cto complete,\u201d like many in his situation, he does his \u201clittle odd jobs,\u201d but with the pandemic, he says, \u201cthings have become much more difficult.\u201d In recent months, the shortage, both of food and toiletries and of the pieces he needs for his independent work, has dried up his few savings, while the prices \u201cof what appears on the street\u201d have not stopped going up. And as of January, he estimates, \u201cthey are going to get much worse.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But after three or four haggard days, Ramiro decided to leave the adding and subtracting for 2021 and reconcile with sleep. \u201cMy wife told me that if I continued to grumble so much, I was going to have a heart attack and I would not reach the new year; that we\u2019d get by, and you know what, she\u2019s right. I also warned her to get ready to tighten our belts, and I asked my daughter to read well all the resolutions that have been drawn up with reorganization things, so that she can later explain them to me calmly, that she has a much better head than I. We\u2019ll see how everything turns out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

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Many Cubans today don\u2019t hide their concerns and worries with the already imminent monetary reorganization. Photo: Otmaro Rodr\u00edguez.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ramiro\u2019s concerns and worries are today those of a great many Cubans. All you have to do is walk through any the island\u2019s cities, talk to people or listen to their comments in queues or on street corners, to know that nothing takes up their conversations and thoughts more than the already imminent monetary and exchange rate system, announced last December 10 by President Miguel D\u00edaz-Canel. Since then, the authorities have released a barrage of information and details in the ongoing <\/span>Gacetas Oficiales<\/span><\/a>, Mesa Redonda TV programs, and newspaper articles, which included addressing the issue in recent sessions of the National Assembly. And, at the same time, they have received from the troubled population an avalanche of doubts and dissatisfactions that, they <\/span>assert<\/span><\/a>, will be taken into account to correct what \u201cshould and can be corrected.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Just as Ramiro and millions of Cubans are concerned these days, one of the greatest risks of the process that officially begins in January is that it will generate inflation, leading to even higher prices. The former Minister of Economy and head of the Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines, Marino Murillo\u2015who has defended the reorganization as something \u201cessential\u201d and that \u201ccannot be postponed\u201d for the Cuban economy\u2015<\/span>has recognized<\/span><\/a> that \u201cthere are objective elements for inflation to take place,\u201d such as rising incomes, supply deficits and rising costs in the private sector, and he has said that \u201cthe key will be how to control an unwanted inflationary process in magnitudes higher than the one estimated\u201d by the government, so that the new nominal wages \u201cdo not lose capacity in terms of real wages.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe want to promote growth and move towards a macroeconomic environment where money fulfills its function,\u201d he said last week in the National Assembly, where President D\u00edaz-Canel and other authorities called on Cubans to collaborate in \u201cthe fight against speculation and selfishness.\u201d But from renowned academics to \u201ccorner economists\u201d are not exactly optimistic about it, beyond the intentions intended by the authorities.<\/span><\/p>\n

Day Zero: Cubans will have 180 days to change their CUC<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n