HAVANA.- He Cuban regime temporarily interrupted the sale of fuel at service centers managed by the military-owned CIMEX corporation, in response to the announced implementation of a price increase. This measure, which came into force on March 1 as part of the “package”, implies the partial dollarization of fuel marketing.
The official statement from CIMEX, according to a review Cuban Diary, states that sales stopped as of 12:00 AM on Friday, for the purpose of making price adjustments. The company assured that marketing will gradually resume in each service center as the necessary procedures are completed.
The increase in fuel prices, previously postponed due to an alleged cybersecurity incident, was announced by the Cuban regime as part of its initiatives to address the economic distortions present in the country. The Minister of Finance and Prices, Valdimir Reguiero Alerecognized the unpopularity of these measures, explaining that they are designed to correct distortions in the economy, although he also recognized their potential inflationary impact.
According to the regime’s announcement in January, the price of a liter of regular gasoline will go from 25 Cuban pesos (0.20 cents) to 132 (1.10 dollars), which is equivalent to an increase of 428%, while the Special gasoline will rise from 30 (0.25 cents) to 156 Cuban pesos (1.30 dollars), which represents an adjustment of more than 420%.
Economists like Pedro Monreal y Rafaela Cruz They warn that these increases can deepen the economic crisis and cause an increase in inflation, negatively affecting the purchasing power of the Cuban population.
“A distortion is ‘corrected’ (energy prices misaligned with the real cost) that would have transversal effects, increasing the distortion of misaligned wages from the cost of living. Whatever they say, ‘corrections’ impoverish the citizen. “What ‘conditions’ did they create?” wrote the economist on the social network X.
“Raising fuel prices, plain and simple, creates inflation, it does not stabilize anything; On the contrary, it sends disruptive waves throughout the entire economy, which must be reformatted by adjusting the relative prices of each good and service, but always upwards,” Cruz warned.
Source: With information from Diario de Cuba and AFP
