Cuban economist Pedro Monreal predicts a 15% drop in gross domestic product, compared to the 6.5% forecast by the Latin American organization
14ymedio, Havana, May 7, 2026 / Cuban economist Pedro Monreal is far more pessimistic in his forecasts for 2026 than the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) [CEPAL in Spanish], predicting a 15% drop in Cuba’s gross domestic product (GDP) [PIB in Spanish], “similar to the 14.9% drop in 1993.” The expert acknowledges that such a calculation is very complicated “because it essentially attempts to assign a number to uncertainty,” but he warns of the seriousness of the figure, “because the current crisis is more intractable than the crisis of the 1990s.”
Last week, ECLAC estimated that the Cuban economy would contract by 6.5% in 2026, the worst in the entire region. This figure significantly revised the estimate from the end of 2025, which projected growth of 0.1%. At that time,it was just three weeks before the United States intervened in Venezuela, ousted Nicolás Maduro, and imposed the oil embargo that is proving devastating for the island’s economy.
Monreal also warns, in an analysis published this Wednesday in Substack, that the previous year ended much worse than the 1.5% decline projected by ECLAC, which is based on official data. The specialist outlines two scenarios, indicating a drop of between 9.1% and 12.5%, based on State Production of Goods and Services (PEBS), that is, everything produced by state-owned enterprises in any sector, given the unavailability of GDP figures.
The economist estimates that prices rose 15% in the best-case scenario and 20% in the worst.
Monreal compares the nominal value—current prices—of state production between 2024 and 2025, adjusting it for inflation. The economist estimates that prices rose 15% in the best-case scenario and 20% in the worst. To arrive at the final figure, he divides the GDP at current prices by the price indices, obtaining these declines that result in economic contraction far exceeding the regional agency’s 1.5%.
The poor PEBS figures for 2025 foreshadow a bleak outlook for the current year, which “significantly complicates the solution to the structural crisis.”
So far this year, and with a geopolitical context that does little to help, the indicators of the Cuban economy have only worsened, including the tourism figures published last week by the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), which once again confirmed the catastrophe.
In the first quarter of the year, the country has lost almost half the number of tourists it attracted during the same period in 2025, a year that was very negative for the sector that has received the most budgetary resources in recent years. So far in 2026, 298,057 international travelers have arrived on the island, compared to 573,363 last year, a drop of 48%.
In recent years, the Cuban economy has alternated between stagnation and contraction, failing to achieve a sustained recovery since the pandemic and the failed internal reforms. The Statistical Yearbook for Latin America and the Caribbean 2025, published by ECLAC last February, ranked Cuba last in the region in GDP per capita after two consecutive years of economic decline.
According to an analysis of this yearbook by Cuban economist Elías Amor Bravo, at current prices, Cuba has a GDP per capita of $1,082 compared to a regional average of over $10,000. Even countries with more fragile economies, such as Haiti, surpass the island in this indicator. When adjusted for inflation (constant prices), the gap narrows, but Cuba still falls below the regional average.
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