Cuba Confirms Elimination of Hard Currency CUC
HAVANA TIMES — The point man of the Cuban economy, VP Marino Murillo, confirmed Friday that the Cuban Convertible Peso (CUC) will be eliminated in the process to reestablish a one-currency system on the island. No date or timeline was given for its disappearance.
The hard currency CUC, pegged to the US dollar, joined the regular Cuban peso (CUP) in the harsh post-Soviet years of the 1990s, as a second island currency. Returning to a one-currency system is now seen by Cuban president Raul Castro and most economists as necessary.
The monetary unification plan, announced last October, will bring the CUC out of circulation, said Murillo, considered the “czar” of economic reforms, noted dpa news.
Cuba has lived with two currencies since 1994. The Cuban peso (CUP), in which wages and pensions are paid, and the US dollar equivalent, the Cuban convertible peso (CUC), with an exchange rate 24 times that of the CUP.
The reform “will leave the CUP as the lone currency and gradually phase out the CUC,” Prensa Latina quoted Murillo saying during a plenary session of the Cuban Parliament on Friday.
Murillo, 52, said there would be guarantees “for those who have funds and bank accounts in CUC,” reported PL.
The announcement of the reform, considered by experts as extremely complex, caused concern among some sectors of the population who have savings in CUC, often saved in cash at home.
Murillo also reiterated words of President Raul Castro, according to which the island ruled out “shock therapy” in the implementation of the reform.
The elimination of the dual currency has been often mentioned as necessary for the market adjustments that Raúl Castro began several years ago. Experts believe that such a reform is key to the recovery of the Cuban economy. Implementation of the return to a single currency could take up to two years.
“If we don’t manage to put our monetary system in order, it is very difficult to make progress on other things,” Murillo told the Cuban legislature.
The Cuban parliament is holding is second brief session of the year, scheduled to end on Saturday with a keynote speech from President Raul Castro. The legislators approved a new Labor Code on Friday without opposition.
The Castros can hire me as their travel and real estate agent. As it happens, given that the bottom is falling out of the Venezuelan economy, I am sure there are a handful of villas for sale on Margarita Island perfect as retirement homes for the Castro clan. I would be happy to set them up with one-way tickets. Let’s face it, these guys are billionaires. They can certainly afford to pay nice commissions.
The Castro’s should have you as an advisor.. You seem to know a lot about what this country needs to be a successful one.
I must admit that I do not interact, knowingly, with communists on a social level. It is true that most of my friends are obvious capitalists. Are most small “c” communists, as you say, like you? When you all get together, do you mostly agree? Do you think that Cuba would be better off if the Castros had you as an advisor?
I can see you’ve never owned your own business. You have absolutely no sense of macro or micro economics. You have no idea of what it takes to start a business and keep it running or even why a business venture would begin to start with. You seem to live in this fantasy land waiting for your small c to come into being
And not to worry my small c friend, I’m sure you’re no putting mosses out
I did not know that Fidel was involved in this ?
Where did you get that information ?
As for unions etc, , were Cuba socialist and not a Leninist state run economy, the workplaces would be run democratically by the workers and unions would not be necessary as they are under totalitarian economies like Cuba and the U.S.
I should think a totalitarian minded person like you who unabashedly supports capitalism and the U.S. oligarchy would be pleased with the top-down run Cuban government and economy ?
How can you reconcile your love for one and your dislike for the other ?
We communists are all small “c” democrats and have no problem pointing out the lack of democracy whether it is in Cuba or in the U.S. and our principled abhorrence of both dictatorships .
BTW, You can find the definitions of both principles and morality at any on-line dictionary.
Sorry if I am hard on you at the time of year you must really dislike given Christ’s having told you that you’re going to hell because of your disregard for the plight of the poor and your active advocacy for the wealthy
Coal in the stocking for you again. Ebenezer
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….Easy they take their hands and place them firmly over their eye’s. Problem solved.
It’s the hight of irony, that for all the lip service they pay socialism, Cuba lives and dies by the mighty US dollars; the very reason the CUP exists. In fact the current changes taking place in Cuba today are financed, indirectly, by the vast sums of money being sent to Cuba through remittances. And for all the vitriol the Cuban government spews against the USA, Castro still acts star struck when he meets POTUS. I bet Raul hasn’t washed the hand he used to shake Obamas with yet!
jejeje… but when????? that is the question
What is the purpose of this announcement? Cuba and the world already knew that the regime was tracking to eliminate the cuc. Because of the lack of independent media, there is no pressure from the press to share more specific details regarding the announcement. Yet, the Castros don’t do anything without a reason behind it, regardless of how hare-brained the reason may be. BTW, the new Labor Code does not make legal the workers right to strike. How do lefties from outside of Cuba who support the Union movement reconcile this omission with their continued support of the Castro dictatorship?