English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Elías Amor Bravo, Economist, 5 October 2023 — In a recent discussion on the Cuban State TV Roundtable program, the issue of the relationship of the ’regulated family basket’ [the monthly allotment of rationed goods] to banking was addressed by the Minister of Internal Trade (MINCIN), Betsy Díaz. She spoke about the increase in … Continue reading “The Disaster of the Communist Business Model in Cuba”
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 30 September 2023 — Mexico has sent about 200 million dollars worth of oil to Cuba this year, according to calculations by the Energy Institute of the University of Texas (USA), to which EFE had access. This year Mexico, through its state-owned Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex), has become one of the largest … Continue reading “Mexico Has Sent 200 Million Dollars Worth of Oil to Cuba This Year, According to Experts”
14ymedio, Havana, 28 September 2023 — While his Ministers of Economy and Energy arranged their faces to confirm the tough savings measures in the face of the umpteenth fuel crisis in Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel was going to a party, although his face was more like it was a funeral. The photographs published in the official … Continue reading “The Committees for the Defense of the Revolution Celebrate 63 years With a Deficit of ‘Cadres’”
14ymedio, Havana, 8 September 2023 — Cuba will once again manufacture high-denomination banknotes that will circulate this month to alleviate the cash crisis that the Island suffers. The data was revealed to the official press by an official of the Banco Popular de Ahorro (BPA) of the town of Santa Fe, on the Isla de … Continue reading “An Issue of High-Denomination Banknotes in Cuba Will Come Out This Month, Says a Bank Source”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, August 1, 2023 — The line at the Banco Metropolitano ATM on Marino y Conill street, in Nuevo Vedado, was abuzz this Tuesday. To the number of elderly people in the neighborhood, who were waiting to be able to extract their pension payment, were added neighbors who came from Calzada … Continue reading “Lack of Cash Makes Cubans Desperate: ‘I’ve Gone Out in the Street to Fight for Pesos’”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 July 2023 — On Tuesday, Cuba’s Parliament held a session to take the pulse of the national economy for the current year and evaluate 2022 results. The outlook, judging by the data offered by the Vice Prime Minister for Economy and Planning, Leticia Morales, is discouraging: 45.48% annual inflation, only 1.8% growth … Continue reading “The President of Cuba’s National Assembly Lashes Out: ‘We’re Tired of Programs and Measures. Where is the Reality?’”
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 13 June 2023 — The Cuban Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, acknowledged that the diversion of diesel from industry to electricity generation has negatively affected the country’s productive activity. Gil made these statements in his inaugural speech at the “Three Days of Productive Economics of Cuba,” a meeting of state and … Continue reading “The Cuban Government Acknowledges Having Used Diesel From the State Industry To Generate Electricity”
14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 6 June 2023 — Modernity has reached the cart operators, who usually bet on the surroundings of the agricultural market at 17th and K, in Havana – by force, like almost everything. This Tuesday, among onions and bananas, one of the sellers exhibited an unprecedented poster. “Transfer is accepted,” it … Continue reading “The Shortage of Banknotes in Cuba Forces Cart Operators To Accept Transfers”
14ymedio, Madrid, 5 April 2023 — The private sector created almost twice as many jobs in Cuba in 2022 as did the State. The number of new employees amounted to 226,704, of which 79,912 were government employees, compared to 146,792 in “other forms of management,” according to data offered in the annual review analyzed on … Continue reading “In Cuba, the Private Sector Creates Twice as Many Jobs as the State”
14ymedio, Madrid, March 20, 2023 — Doubts are growing after the announcement by Cuba’s state-run media that the first five wholesale businesses to be financed with foreign capital will begin operations in the country in April or May. Little else is known about a plan that officials hope will lower inflation but which economists view more … Continue reading “Cuban Economists Doubt New Foreign Businesses Will Help Lower Inflation”
14ymedio, Madrid, 10 February 2023 — Cuba’s Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, announced this Thursday the imminent start-up of seven foreign investment businesses with an impact on the food sector, some of them starting in March. In a meeting with directors of the Ministry of the Food Industry, he insisted on the need to turn … Continue reading “Cuba’s Tinima Brewery, in Camaguey, Will be Reopened with Foreign Capital”
14ymedio, Havana, 21 December 2022 — The worst omens of Cuba’s tourism sector are being fulfilled. With the November data, published this Tuesday by the National Bureau of Statistics and Information (ONEI), 1,377,253 international visitors have been received so far this year, which means that Cuba needs to receive 332,747 foreign tourists to meet its … Continue reading “Cuba Needs More Than 300,000 Tourists in December to Achieve its Annual Goal”
14ymedio, Juan Izquierdo, Havana, 12 December 2022 — With a tearful speech about his “personal dissatisfactions” as the head of the Government and in the presence of Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel was accountable this Wednesday, at the Havana Convention Center, for his management of the country during 2022. To the usual justifications to explain the … Continue reading “Diaz-Canel Talks About His ‘Dissatisfactions’ Without Offering a Way Out of the Cuban Crisis”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 12 December 2022 — In February 1970, while doing my work as a journalist (still a student) to cover the sugar harvest in the municipality of Florida, I attended an important meeting chaired by Armando Hart Dávalos, the member of the Political Bureau assigned to guarantee the goal corresponding to the … Continue reading “The Ordering Task* and the Law of Gravity”
14ymedio, Havana, 10 December 2022 — The leaders of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) took advantage of the closure, this Saturday, of the 5th Plenary of the Central Committee, to justify their actions, which have led the country to a generalized crisis with daily blackouts. “It was a hard and difficult year,” admitted the … Continue reading “In the Absence of Raul Castro, the PCC Plenary Avoids its Responsibility in the Cuban Disaster”
