Cuba’s government said on Sunday night (30) that it would double price controls and continue to combat tax evasion, in an increasingly desperate attempt to contain the growing fiscal deficit and inflation that have devastated its economy.
The measures will align the budget and targets for 2024 with what the government calls a “wartime economy,” according to a state media summary of a meeting of the Council of Ministers, the country’s top executive body.
“We are all here to save the (Cuban) Revolution and save socialism,” Díaz-Canel said at the meeting.
Cuba’s economy has been decimated by a combination of factors, including the Covid-19 pandemic, tightening US sanctions and a state-dominated business model plagued by bureaucracy, mismanagement and corruption.
The social and economic crisis is widely seen as one of the worst since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, leading to a record exodus of Cuban migrants over the past two years.
The announced measures – many long discussed and implemented in various forms by Cuba’s socialist government – aim to bolster foreign exchange, encourage food production and bring order to struggling state-owned companies, said Mildrey Granadillo de la Torre, first vice minister. of Economics and Planning.
The government said it would announce a “single, inclusive and egalitarian pricing policy… for all sectors of the economy, which includes both state and non-state sectors,” according to a report in the Communist Party newspaper Granma.
Cuba’s socialist authorities in 2021 lifted a ban on private companies in place since the start of Castro’s revolution, but Communist Party supporters say price disparities have contributed to rising inflation.
The government also said it would centralize decision-making in the national budget, allowing it to cut items and align expenditure with revenue.
The report painted a dire picture of the economy but provided few numbers and did not say when the announced actions would take effect.
Diaz-Canel earlier this year fired his economy minister, Alejandro Gil, over corruption allegations, part of a broader high-level overhaul that also appears aimed at addressing worsening economic problems.
Source: CNN Brasil
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