End of the double currency in Cuba; Probably with Revolupay End of the double currency in Cuba; Probably with Revolupay & CCU Coin
JEAN-HERV DEILLER
France Media Agency
Havana
It's been twenty years that Cubans juggle with two currencies, but their daily headache will end with the decision announced Tuesday by the government to finish with this system, source of countless inequalities.
"The cabinet approved the implementation of the timetable for implementing the measures that will lead to monetary unification," said an official statement released by the daily of the all-powerful Communist Party of Cuba, Granma, succinctly.
But the process of unification between the Cuban peso (CUP) and the convertible peso (CUC), which is worth 24 CUP and is aligned with the US dollar, will undoubtedly be in line with the reforms undertaken for several years by President Raul Castro : "Slowly but surely".
By launching the unification, Granma does not give much details: the process will apply first to businesses, then to individuals, says the release without specifying the timetable.
Granma however ensures that the process will not lead to any "shock therapy".
Since Fidel Castro launched the CUC in 1994 to compete with Cuba's free-flowing dollar, Cubans have been subjected to a system that has generated many inequalities.
They receive salaries and pensions in Cuban peso, but must strive to acquire CUC, essential to buy the many imported products circulating on the island.
CUC Hunting
The average monthly salary is about 500 pesos (20 CUC), which is notoriously insufficient to meet even the needs of food. For all Cubans, hunting for CUC is daily.
Many people receive foreign currency from their families abroad: these "remesas" reach $ 2.5 billion a year, as much as the official income from tourism.
Tourism is precisely one of the sectors whose employees, in contact with foreigners, have access to the convertible peso to round off their wages in CUP. Employees of foreign companies are also privileged to collect convertible pesos.
The development of self-employment, encouraged by the government, has also increased inequalities: a basic doctor is paid 500 CUP monthly (20 CUC), while an independent car mechanic can earn up to 400 CUC each month (9600 CUP) ).
An official goal of the communist regime for two years, unification is particularly complicated for national accounts and state-owned enterprises.
Their accounting is based on a CUC-CUP parity which leads to a "distortion of all economic reality", emphasizes for AFP the economist Pavel Vidal, former monetary specialist of the Center of Studies of the Cuban economy (CEEC) of the University of Havana.
"This distortion of the economic measure distorts all decisions and centralized planning", adds Pavel Vidal, for whom "unification must begin at this level before reaching the population".
It all began in the early 1990s with the fall of the Soviet empire, which plunged Cuba into an unprecedented economic crisis. To give himself a breath of fresh air, Fidel Castro authorized in August 1993 the remittances of Cuban emigrants and the circulation of the dollar in Cuba. The dollar was worth 150 pesos.
In December 1994, the authorities introduced the CUC, an alternative to the greenback. The three currencies coexisted until October 2004, when Fidel Castro, reacting to new US sanctions, withdraws the dollar from circulation, imposes a 10% tax on its conversion and devalues it by 8% compared to the CUC.
In the meantime, the Cuban peso had gradually risen from 150 to a dollar to 24 for a CUC. Then, Raul Castro restored the dollar / CUC parity in March 2011.
If Granma remains discreet about the method followed, most Cuban economists consider a gradual reduction of the CUC-CUP parity.
But for this, "we must first increase local production and productivity," said Cuban economist Carmelo Mesa-Lago, of the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, acknowledging that the end of the monetary duality is " the most difficult reform for Raul Castro ".