Cuba Siglo XXI publishes a report signed by economist Emilio Morales
14ymedio, Madrid, July 25, 2024 — In three key points – the collapse of medical service exports, the fall in remittances and the debacle of tourism – economist Emilio Morales deciphers the collapse of the “Cuban system.” In the most recent report of the organization Cuba Siglo 21, based in Madrid, the researcher says that there has been a drop of more than 50% in the Government’s main sources of foreign currency, which will “reach the 71st anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks with a country in “countdown.” Published this Thursday, the report documents how one of the most powerful foreign exchange inflows that Cuba had – the export of medical services – fell by 78% since 2013, when it generated 10.42 billion dollars for the Regime.
According to the report to Parliament by the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, in 2023, Cuba lost 63.939 billion pesos, which, with the official exchange rate of 24 to 1, is equivalent to a loss of 2.664 billion dollars for the Island. The largest part of these revenues corresponds to medical services, managed by Gaesa, the economic arm of the Army, through the company Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos and the Banco Financiero Internacional y de Antex S.A, another company designed to handle contracts for the Cuban doctors in the exterior, says Morales.
“Gaesa has pocketed no less than 69.8 billion dollars of the 108.5 billion it has collected from doctors’ salaries” between 2008 and 2023, summarizes the economist, who supports his conclusion with a graph. That money “never returned to the reconstruction of hospitals, acquisition of equipment and medical supplies, or to improve the conditions of patient care.”
The Government, in fact, invested only 1.7 billion dollars in Public Health in 2023, a figure that contrasts with the 24.2 billion invested in the construction of hotels. On the other hand, remittances also decreased in 2023. The entry into the country of 1.972 billion dollars represented a fall of 2.31% compared to 2022, and 46% compared to 2019. The cause – which Morales has referred to on more than one occasion – is not a mystery to anyone: the massive stampede after 11 July 2021 and the economic crisis of recent years. In addition, those who emigrate, instead of sending money to those who stay, prefer to take them out of the country as soon as possible.
Morales summarizes the data recently offered by Cuban economist Juan Carlos Albizu-Campos, who estimates that between 2022 and 2023, 1.79 million people left Cuba. With that exodus, remittances also fell. “In 2023, it is estimated that the exiled and excluded Cuban diaspora spent between 1.8 and 2.2 billion dollars to take out of the country the 200,287 Cubans who emigrated to the United States, and tens of thousands of others who are still on the way,” he analyzes.
As for tourism, Morales analyzes its failure after the pandemic, in an international context characterized by the recovery of visitor levels. While Cuba received only 2.4 million tourists in 2023, a neighboring country, the Dominican Republic, exceeded 10 million. The regime has opted for Russian tourism, which, however, “has not compensated for the loss of European tourism, affected by Cuba’s support for Russia in the war against Ukraine,” explains the economist. To illustrate the debacle, Morales points out that the five main European countries – Italy, France, Germany, Spain and England – sent 67.45% fewer travelers to the Island. Cubans living abroad, indispensable for tourism, also decreased their number in 2023 by 42% compared to 2019: only 358,480 were c0unted.
The problem also has a political dimension, which is that both the Communist Party and the government structures in the country have been left without relief by the mass exodus, even of their own cadres. The Supreme Court, as recognized by the government, has only 69% of the judges it needs to operate in the country.
Morales blames Gaesa for the mismanagement of the country’s resources and says it has led a war against the MSMEs to limit their field of action and decrease their control. It is, clearly, a “dysfunctional” system, he says, which is pointed out even by Cuba’s allies, who no longer dare to launch a “large-scale economic rescue,” given the resistance to the change in leadership at the head of Cuban power. In a comatose state and grasping at partial and last-minute solutions, the Cuban Government – says the economist – has its days numbered.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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