According to John Caulfield, a former Chief of Mission of the U.S. Special Interests Section in Cuba (before the 2015 reopening of the U.S. Embassy in Havana), Miguel Diaz-Canel, when he becomes Cuba’s President of the Council of State on April 19, “will face serious challenges from the moment he takes over. Cuba’s Soviet-style economic model is not working. Raul has acknowledged as much and in 2011 began to implement economic reforms that allowed many Cubans to become self-employed and buy and sell residences. These changes have allowed some Cubans to achieve relative prosperity, while the majority is stuck in low-paying jobs.”[1]
Caulfield added, “Their success caused a negative reaction from inside the Communist Party that saw the rise of these non-state workers as a threat to the system. Recognizing these concerns, Raúl [Castro] told the National Assembly last summer that he took personal responsibility for ‘errors’ and froze the concession of most new business and self-employment licenses.”
This will present Diaz-Canel and the Cuban Communist Party with a dilemma:
- Pull “Cuba from its economic morass” by introducing “urgent reforms to eliminate economic distortions such as the use of two national currencies and inefficient state industries,” by attracting “private foreign investment to generate new exports and rebuild Cuba’s decaying infrastructure” and by allowing “Cuba’s incipient private sector to grow.”
- Or reject this reform agenda and thereby halt the creation of private wealth and a threat to the Communist Party’s domination of the island.
The case against reform may have been strengthened by the apparent success of the Mariel Special Development Zone, a deep-water port and adjacent land for industry and distribution businesses on the north shore of the island west of Havana. Currently 10 projects are operational, related to several sectors, including industry, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, logistics, construction, food processing, and real estate, and this year another six (Richmeat, Profood Service, Devox Caribe, Bouygues Construcción Cuba, Engimov Caribe, and Nescor) will begin operations while another 18 have been approved and await implementation.along with construction of an Agricultural Terminal, a second business center and other infrastructure.[2]
The Mariel Special Development Zone received another foreign investor on March 29 when a Vietnamese entity signed an agreement to develop an industrial park of 156 hectares in the Zone. Another eight agreements with such entities were signed that day at the conclusion of the visit to the island by Nguyen Phu Trong, general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam. One of these agreements called for the construction of a 50 megawatt bio-electrical plant and an agricultural development combined with the use of renewable energy to generate electricity.[3]
On the other hand, as noted in a prior post. Secretary-General Trong in a speech at the University of Havana emphasized the need for the incorporation of market economic measures in communist systems.
At the end of last month there was a public debate in Havana about Cuba’s emerging private sector. A survey of the 200 attendees revealed that those with the highest monthly incomes of 20,000 CUC (roughly $20,000) were the owners of rental houses, paladares (restaurants), musicians, small farmers, and, on a smaller scale, scientists, miners, ministers, workers in the sugar industry, lawyers, and doctors. Havana, Ciego de Ávila and Matanzas, were considered the provinces with the highest incomes in the country. On the other hand, at least 25% of the Cuban population lives below the poverty line, and the average monthly salary for State workers in 2018 rose to 740 Cuban pesos (approximately 30 dollars). The audience also discussed what pattern of inequality the population was politically willing to accept and whether this which could fracture Communist ideology on the Island.[4]
Overriding all of these issues and problems is the recognized need for Cuba to eliminate their dual currency system. According to Pavel Vidal, a Cuban economist,“It is impossible for Cuba to achieve a significant and sustainable improvement in the productivity of its economy so long as it operates with two national currencies, with multiple exchange rates between them and an official exchange rate that is excessively overvalued.”[5]
However, Vidal said “state enterprises that show permanent losses should be closed or merged instead of being allowed to operate in a ‘financial bubble’ where they are sustained by implicit subsidies received every time they pay for imported inputs using an overvalued exchange rate. This bubble must be burst, and the state sector must be restructured. Enormous amounts of financial and human resources have been wasted in supporting state enterprises with no economic value.” Vidal added that if the Cuban government chooses true currency reform, “it should be accompanied by not only a greater opening to foreign investment but also by liberalization of the private sector. An expansion of the private sector, he said, “would allow Cuba to absorb the unemployment that would be produced from enterprises that go bankrupt.”
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[1] Caulfield, Cuba’s next president faces choice between economy and communism, the Hill (April 4, 2018). Many of these issues have been discussed in posts listed in the “Cuban Economy” section of List of Posts to dwkcommentaries—Topical: CUBA.
[2] Martinez, Promoting development and connecting Cuba to the world (Photos), Granma (April 3, 2018).
[3] Peraza, New accords strengthen strategic relations between Cuba and Vietnam, Granma (April 4, 2018).
[4] Ramirez, Rich “comrades,” Diario de Cuba (April 4, 2018).
[5] Whitefield, Cuba desperately needs to reform currency system, but timing couldn’t be worse, Miami Herald (April 4, 2018).