{"id":254279,"date":"2022-06-17T16:37:42","date_gmt":"2022-06-17T20:37:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=254279"},"modified":"2022-06-17T16:37:42","modified_gmt":"2022-06-17T20:37:42","slug":"the-economys-long-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/opinion\/columns\/counterbalance\/the-economys-long-race\/","title":{"rendered":"The economy\u2019s long race"},"content":{"rendered":"

The <\/span>Economic and Social Guidelines<\/b><\/a> opened this new stage of economic reforms 11 long years ago. Later, the approval of the Conceptualization and the National Economic and Social Development Plan became another point of reference. Later, after March 2020, it was the <\/span>updating<\/b><\/a>\u00a0of the strategy.<\/span><\/p>\n

In that eleven-year period we have seen a U.S. president publicly declare that he was convinced of the failure of the policies towards Cuba that the administrations that preceded him had put into practice since the 1960s. Meanwhile, the other two presidents who followed him have done everything possible to achieve what those administrations that preceded Obama failed to achieve. The latest of them, in that stammering style of politics that has characterized him, has eliminated a few of all the restrictions that his predecessor imposed.<\/span><\/p>\n

Coinciding in time, the pandemic that has turned the world economy upside down taught us that we had enough strength to create vaccines that others, more powerful, could not produce. Today we have a vaccination coverage that no country in the Americas, North and South included, has achieved.<\/span><\/p>\n

During this time, tourism disappeared and along with it, but thanks to the \u201c<\/span>monetary reorganization<\/b><\/a>,\u201d the CUC and the stores in foreign currency disappeared, to later appear \u201ctransformed into freely convertible currency and stores in freely convertible currency.\u201d Meanwhile, the CADECA exchange houses have become a thing of the past. The physical dollars, those that come from \u201coutside,\u201d do not find a space in the banks and those that are in the banks do not find a way to get out of there and reach the population. Euros are preferred by the public, as they can be converted into plastic freely convertible money. In the end, while trying to have a single currency we have at least three; trying to achieve a single exchange rate, we now have at least two; convertibility from one currency to another is not possible, at least for the public. Have we reached such extreme situations like that in a cafeteria in terminal three of Havana\u2019s international airport you must pay in euros and the change is delivered in Cuban pesos, which does nothing to contribute to that aspiration to recover tourism?<\/span><\/p>\n

The products from the stores also disappeared, from all of them. And also for some time and thanks to the innovation of capped prices, sweet potato became invisible and almost all other food of greater rank as well. Whoever was the \u201cnational mammal\u201d will take time to be within the reach of most pockets because the sacrifice of reproductive mothers due to lack of food has made us lose what was one of the few successes of Cuban livestock production. Bottled water, in plastic bottles, is a rarity so tourists will have to get used to \u201ctap water\u201d if they leave the hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Money matters<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n