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Main article: Cuba
Financial system
2022
Mir payment system launched in Cuba
On October 19, 2023, it became known about the launch of the Mir payment system in Cuba. Boris Titov, Presidential Plenipotentiary for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, Chairman of the Business Council of Russia-Cuba, spoke about this. Read more here.
Cuba agreed to accept Mir cards
Cuba and Venezuela agreed to accept Mir cards, which became known in April 2022. The National Payment Card System (NSPK) said the system is technologically ready to operate in new countries. Read more here.
Coin dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the formation of the USSR
In May 2022, Cuba issued a coin dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the formation of the Soviet Union.
Government allows cryptocurrencies to be used for payments
In August 2021, the government Cubes officially allowed the use of digital currency for payments on the island, guided by "socio-economic interests." cryptocurrency bitcoin The country's central bank announced that it will soon establish new rules for handling. The most popular digital currency in Cuba has become - about 10,000 Cubans use it.
In September 2021, Cuba entered into force resolution 215 of 2021 of the Central Bank of Cuba, which regulates the use of certain virtual assets or cryptocurrencies in commercial operations.
Since cryptocurrency is officially recognized by the Central Bank, now Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies can be used in the country for commercial transactions and investments.
The resolution also provides for the licensing of virtual asset service providers to conduct financial transactions in Cuba. To this end, the resolution defines as a virtual asset a digital representation of value that can be traded or transmitted digitally and used for payments or investments.
Inflation
2022: Inflation in November - 37.2%
Banks
2024: Opening of the first branch of the Russian bank
On June 20, 2024, it became known that the subsidiary bank of Rostec Novikom opened a representative office in Cuba, becoming the first Russian bank to present its services in this country. This step is aimed at strengthening financial ties between Russia and Cuba, providing stable settlements and banking support for bilateral trade, economic and investment projects. Read more here.
Energy and power
2024: Resumption of oil supplies from Russia
At the end of March 2024, a Russian fuel tanker will dock east of Havana in a welcome relief for Cuban officials trying to thwart growing unrest over persistent power outages.
About 715,000 barrels of crude oil are due to arrive at the port of Matanzas. This is the first batch of Russian oil in Cuba in a year.
Havana is turning back toward Moscow as other allies cut supplies.
The island is experiencing one of the deepest crises since the collapse of the USSR.
2020: Very low energy consumption per capita
and
2018: Petrol price
R&D
2020: R&D spending - $1.1 billion
Foreign trade
2023: Russia and Cuba create a joint venture to sell goods from the Russian Federation on the island
At the end of March 2023, it became known about the creation of the joint Russian-Cuban company Rusmarket, which will be used to sell goods from the Russian Federation on the island. Some details about the project were told by the Presidential Plenipotentiary RUSSIAN FEDERATION for the Protection of the Rights of Entrepreneurs, Chairman of the Russia-Cuba Business Council. Boris Titov More. here
Tourism
2023: Tourist flow from Russia to Cuba breaks pre-pandemic record
In 2023, 184 thousand people from Russia visited Cuba, which is 3.4 times more than a year earlier. The Russian tourist flow to Cuba broke the record for 2019 (178 thousand people), when there was no COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic yet. This is evidenced by the data of the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), which with refers to the statistics of the Ministry of Tourism of Cuba.
In terms of the number of tourist arrivals in 2023, Russia has become the third most important entry market for Cuba, ATOR reports. In terms of the number of tourists visiting the island, the Russian Federation lost only to the United States and Canada in 2023. In 2023, a total of 2.4 million tourists visited Cuba, which is 823 thousand people more than in 2022.
According to ATOR statistics, in 2023 most tourists from the Russian Federation (84%) arrived in Cuba on Nordwind flights. The airline operates flights from Moscow to Varadero five times a week.
 | Nordwind flights have excellent occupancy, on average exceeding 92% of the aircraft's capacity, the Cuban Ministry of Tourism said, a statement cited by ATOR. |  |
The rest of the Russians in 2023 traveled to Cuba on the flights of Rossiya Airlines and the Venezuelan Conviasa.
As noted in ATOR, the increase in Russian tourist flow to Cuba in 2023 is due to the activity of tour operators, and first of all, Pegas Touristik, which, together with Nordwind, implements flight programs from Moscow to the popular resorts of Varadero and Kayo-Koko. Blocks of seats on these flights are also taken by tour operators Anex and Intourist. So, in 2023, 156 thousand tourists from Russia arrived on Nordwind flights to Cuba (that is, 84% of all tourists from the Russian Federation), the association calculated.
The demand for tours in the direction remains consistently high, in connection with which tour operators extend the flight program to the resorts of Varadero and Cayo Coco and for the summer season of 2024, added to ATOR.[1]
Economic history
1960s: Nationalization of industry
Private business in Cuba fell into disgrace in the distant 1960s, when Fidel Castro nationalized industry. Since that time, the successes of the economic policy of the authorities directly depended on the volume of subsidies from the USSR. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, money from overseas stopped flowing, and Havana had to think about life within its means. The situation was aggravated by economic sanctions imposed by the US authorities - Washington banned its companies from trading with Cuban organizations, and this deprived Cubans of cheap imports of everyday goods, the release of which is difficult in all communist regimes.
1990s: Dual currency system, private business licenses
The most powerful crisis forced Havana to make a number of decisions that run counter to socialist ideology. Already in the early 1990s, the Communists went to some indulgences:
- companies allowed to engage in international trade without special permits,
- for Cubans introduced licenses for private business,
- legalized the circulation of the dollar (in 2004 the dollar was replaced by a convertible peso), which created a dual currency system.
The dual-currency system has been operating on the island since 1994, when Cuba had to open up to an influx of tourists, and it acquired its modern look - with the usual peso (CUP) and convertible peso (CUC) - by the beginning of the 21st century. A regular peso costs only four cents, in this national currency Cubans receive a salary and are paid for goods produced on the island. A convertible peso is "live" money with which to buy imported goods. The convertible peso costs exactly a dollar, this national currency is used mainly in the profitable tourism industry.
Such a system has led to the fact that state employees, no matter how qualified, earn several times less than waiters, maids and taxi drivers who receive CUC from tourists. The monthly salary of a doctor is 500 ordinary pesos (20) dollars , while a mechanic working for himself earns about $380, notes Agence France-Presse.
Once the situation in the economy improved slightly, Fidel Castro again set a number of restrictions. Private business was not formally banned, but high taxes on self-employment and a limited number of licenses made entrepreneurial activity on the island almost impossible.
As a result, by the end of the 2000s, Cuba was a country whose 95 percent of the population was employed in the extremely inefficient public sector of the economy.
2010: Plan to reduce 1 million civil servants
In 2010, the Communist Party realized that it was impossible to continue to live like this, and announced its intention to dismiss 500 thousand Cubans working for the state (trade unions reported the impending dismissal of a million workers, or one in five working Cubans). Then it was predicted that the plan for reductions was planned to be implemented in five years.
In total, more than 11 million people live on the island, of which five million work. Of these, in 2009 only 143.8 thousand people officially had the status of self-employed (that is, those who, in fact, own a small business). By the summer of 2013, the number of self-employed had tripled - to almost 430 thousand people.
If we take into account the maximum plan for the dismissal of a million people, it turns out that only a third of this number was able to be employed outside the public sector. However, the five-year term allotted for reductions will end only in two years, so the success of the new strategy of the Cuban authorities can be judged later, although it is already clear that there is a positive result. Other reforms, such as the launch of affordable lending and the opening of entrepreneurial courses, can also help reduce unemployment.
2011:178 specialties for private business
Since 2011, Cuba has a list of 178 specialties allowed for small and medium-sized enterprises (in the fall of 2013, the list was increased by 18 points). The list included a variety of specialties: from plumber to restaurant owner. In 83 positions, the authorities even allowed "businessmen" to hire workers.
2013: The beginning of the liquidation of the dual-currency system
No matter how the Cuban authorities disown capitalism, changes on the island are taking place in the most marketable way. Another evidence of this is the beginning of the elimination of the dual-currency system, which has existed in the country for almost 20 years.
In July 2013, Raul Castro declared the two-peso system one of the biggest obstacles to the nation's progress, and on October 22, 2013, the government newspaper Granma reported that the Cuban Council of Ministers had adopted a plan for a phased unification of the monetary system. It should be noted that national currencies are quoted one to one in public bank accounts (and there are simply no others in the country), and how Cuban financiers will deal with this bedlam is unclear[2].
Other issues remain unclear. The population is primarily concerned about the fate of its own savings: what will be inflation after the transition to a single peso, the government does not predict. In Granma's note, in the best traditions of the communist press, it is reported that citizens who honestly earned their money will not suffer, but no details are given. "Basically, this is a devaluation that will devalue pension payments," former US diplomat Vicki Huddleston, who worked in Havana for three years, told NBC.
It will be difficult for the public sector, which now actually receives dollars in the form of convertible pesos at a one-to-one rate. The planned changes will deprive state-owned companies of this huge subsidy. The government is likely to have to cut a significant part of social spending, predicts Rafael Romeu, former president of the Association for the Study of the Economy of Cuba.
Despite the risks, in the long term, the island should benefit from the unification of the monetary system, said Filip Peters, an expert on Cuba and vice president of the Lexington Institute. The economist wrote in his blog that the two-peso system leads to the wrong "price signals" that all participants in the economy receive, and harms stability in the labor market.
The country's authorities hope that in a year and a half there will be only one peso in Cuba, but economists doubt that the government will be able to rebuild the monetary system of an entire country in such a short time. First, the Cuban Communists have no experience overseeing convertible currencies, and second, no international support, free market, and democratic government that are needed to control inflation in such reforms. A similar situation was observed in the early 1990s in Russia, when as a result of the combination of non-cash and cash rubles, the Soviet monetary system was liquidated, which ultimately led to hyperinflation.
If Cuba decides on the same drastic changes that took place in Russia in the 90s, the country will be able to move to a market economy in a relatively quick time. So far, however, the Communist Party has diligently disowned the course of capitalism: the lessons of the same Russia show that rarely when economic "perestroika" can be carried out without parallel political reforms and shock shocks for the masses.
2022: UN General Assembly votes to end Cuba blockade
The United Nations General Assembly in November 2022 voted to end the blockade of Cuba with the votes of 185 countries. Two countries (the United States and Israel) voted against, and 2 countries (Brazil and Ukraine) abstained.
Alcohol market
Minimum age to purchase alcoholic beverages
Consumption
Meat
2023: Poultry meat is the most consumed type of meat
See also
Notes
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