Faced with the new restrictive measures, many Cienfuegos merchants have closed their businesses
14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Cienfuegos, 31 December 2024 — The before and after that marks the arrival of a new year raises a universal question: what will 2025 bring? Cienfuegos, immersed in a deep crisis like so many places in Cuba, is no exception. Doubts are greater among entrepreneurs, a sector that in recent months has changed from initial euphoria to fear of the new official measures that regulate wholesale trade.
On Dolores road, in stores with wide portals on both sides, the caution of private business owners is noticeable even on their product boards. Where before there was a long list of sweets, soft drinks, alcoholic beverages and all kinds of imported food, now you can barely find anything.
Norberto avoids making predictions for the new year. “They have shaken up the board,” he explains to 14ymedio about the new regulations that force micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) to sell wholesale with the mediation of the State and the explicit prohibition of doing so for self-employed workers. His small private store was fed, precisely, by a private business that imported large volumes from Mexico.
“In our establishment, the stable sale of oil, chicken, picadillo and other products highly demanded by our customers was guaranteed,” Norberto points out. This end of the year, however, in fridges and on shelves, the frozen chicken drumsticks have disappeared, along with the wide variety of beans that until recently were offered and the decreased options for pasta and tomato sauce.
Norberto’s store is a distillate of the effort of several generations of his family. The large family estate, on the outskirts of the city, was for decades the productive epicenter of his grandparents and parents. But a few years ago, when the purchase and sale of houses and land was finally allowed, his relatives decided to finish planting the farm with crops, fruit trees and add a pigsty. The resulting money went to a house on the Dolores road and a small grocery store.
Now, the Cienfuegos man has many questions about the future of his business: “Will state-owned companies be able to maintain a permanent assortment of the merchandise we need? Will there be new measures with more restrictions and prohibitions? Will they include more products on the list of capped prices that they now impose on us?” His doubts are not exaggerated, because since he opened the doors of his store less than two years ago “there has been only bad news.”
However, Norberto is not going to give up for the moment. “Our MSME will renew the license, but we are also preparing in case we finally have to close,” he admits. “The problem is that you can’t have it both ways: either I stay open or I close. There comes a time when you have to choose.”
Gonzalo is one of many entrepreneurs who, this Christmas, instead of garlands and red hats, has dressed in the costume of uncertainty. In a space on San Carlos Street, near Martí Park, the owner of another shop repeats similar questions. “I bought directly from a private person in Punta Gorda, but they are already liquidating the products they have left because they don’t want to do business with the Government. Who am I going to buy from in January?” he asks.
Many merchants maintain the illusion that “something will happen” that forces the authorities to implement greater economic openness
At the moment, he is not considering liquidating his business. Hope is the last thing that is lost when there is so much money at stake. Many merchants maintain the illusion that “something will happen” that will force the Cuban authorities to implement greater economic openness and eliminate the restrictive measures recently adopted. “We can see that it will be very difficult next year, and it is possible that this will make the Government understand that only we can provide food to the people.”
For Gonzalo, there is an inversely proportional relationship between what happens in the stores of the rationed market and the role that private shops are playing. “To the same extent that the supply of rationing is smaller and more unstable, MSMEs have been growing in offers and variety, and we also have places that make you want to enter – beautiful, well-decorated with good attention to the customer. Buying right now at a state ration store is depressing.”
The entrepreneur, however, recognizes that many Cubans cannot pay the high prices of the MSMEs: a liter of vegetable oil, 800 pesos this last week of December in Cienfuegos; a pound of chicken around 310, and a 500-gram package of spaghetti for 300 pesos. For retirees and state employees who do not receive remittances from abroad or have any informal sources of money, the private shops are prohibitive.
“We do not set prices on a whim. Our business has many expenses to cover, and the lack of fuel has made the transfer of goods, the payment of employees and the investment to turn the main room and the door of the house into a pleasant little shop are expenses that prevent us from selling cheaper.” Christmas offers and year-end sales are not the order of the day because the bills keep coming.
Other merchants got ahead of events. Liuba, 48 years old, sensed what was coming. Resident in the Junco Sur neighborhood, the businesswoman liquidated her small business earlier this year, a tiny store where customers could find everything from sweet cookies, malts and beer to packages of minced turkey, a food very helpful for those who cannot pay for other animal proteins. “I knew all this was coming because I have a relative who works in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and he warned me of what was being cooked up.”
Liuba didn’t lose too much money. “I finished selling the merchandise I had in stock and told the owner of the house, who was renting me the space, that I was no longer going to continue and handed over my license.” Now, Liuba offers some products through WhatsApp groups. “We have food combos that are paid for from abroad by Zelle. My husband, my eldest son and I deliver them to your home.” The new modality, absolutely informal, has given her a break: “I got rid of the inspectors, the prices and the maintenance of the premises.” Now, I put together the packages by buying goods from agricultural producers and other MSMEs. “I sell less, but I’m calmer.”
On the wide road of Dolores, the offer boards have very few products at the end of the year, but the new official restrictions have not affected the combos that Liuba has prepared for Christmas. “If next year they remove all these absurd laws, I will reopen my little grocery store,” she says, but for the moment she prefers to stay “under the radar” and sell outside the law.
Translated by Regina Anavy
See here for one report on average incomes in Cuba for 2024.
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