Cuban Gov. Opens Mega Wholesale Store Selling in US Dollars
By Glenda Boza Ibarra (El Toque)
HAVANA TIMES – On May 6, the Tiendas Caribe chain, part of the GAESA military consortium, inaugurated a new wholesale establishment that functions with US dollars in the Mariel Special Development Zone located an hour’s drive west of Havana.
The store is intended to supply private small and medium businesses, cooperatives; self-employed workers; state enterprises; diplomatic missions; and foreign offices.
According to social media posts, the Caribe-Mariel wholesaler offers food, beverages, fresh and frozen produce, hardware, household appliances, personal hygiene products and cleaning supplies.
The inauguration announcement stated: “It’s designed to facilitate access to merchandise in high demand with competitive pricing and rapid service.”
In order to have access to the products offered, those interested must register at the Mariel business office, and demonstrate their license category: self-employed, cooperative, small business, organization, state company, etc. The aspiring customers then sign a sales contract, select their products, and return 48 hours later to pick them up.
Payment is due upon delivery, no commercial credit is available, and only dollars via debit cards or direct account transfers are excepted.
It’s noteworthy that the purchasing method is limited to national and international debit cards that link to hard currency accounts. In contrast, the private sector workers themselves aren’t allowed to charge for their services in dollars.
“The same thing happens with the population: they’re paid their wages in Cuban pesos yet they have to pay for food in dollars (at government stores). We’re not allowed to charge the people in dollars, but they’re allowed to sell to us in dollars. Only the government can do whatever they feel like,” one of the self-employed workers told El Toque.
Since the government change houses and banks do not sell dollars to private businesses or the population they have to buy them on the informal market at three times the official rate.
The establishment’s opening is framed within the context of the Cuban Interior Trade Ministry’s resolution #5/2024, which set new regulations for non-government wholesale and retail businesses.
The regulation forbids the private sector to engage in wholesale business, unless it’s their chief activity, and mandates them to do this only with the State. According to entrepreneurs and economists, these limitations hinder the autonomy and growth potential of private businesses.
However, on May 7, the date for implementation of the new rule, it was postponed in the case of the small and medium businesses and cooperatives, although the self-employed workers were ordered to end their wholesale activities and liquidate their inventories.
The announcement of the new government wholesale store declares that the Caribe-Mariel Supplier seeks to provide efficient and accessible solutions for companies, entrepreneurs and other forms of non-state management, by facilitating access to inputs and materials essential for their development.
Among the products on display were articles from the mixed [state and private] Suchel Camacho Company S.A., the Vietnamese Thai Binh Global Investment Corporation, and the Spanish Vima Foods.
It’s also possible they’ll offer meat products from the Mexican company Richmeat, which recently signed a trade contract with Tiendas Caribe for retail and wholesale sales.
Private company owners and economists alerted that the centralization of wholesale trade could cause shortages and increased prices in the retail markets, by affecting the continuity of the supply chain.
Since December 2024, when Resolution 56/2024 was made known, both consequences have been noted, with shortages of flour, cooking oil, rice and chicken, plus ongoing increases in the prices of these products.
First published in Spanish by El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
Cuba’s economy is in crisis, and like it or not, hard currency is essential for keeping the country afloat. The new government-run wholesale outlet may not align with free market ideals, but in a country under sanctions and with limited access to international credit, it’s a practical step.
Without some form of centralized control, dollars disappear into fragmented supply chains and informal markets, driving up prices and deepening shortages. This approach, while imperfect, aims to bring order and predictability to a chaotic situation—and helps ensure that limited resources go where they’re most needed.
Rather than seeing this as a clampdown, it might be better understood as a survival measure in an economy that’s been backed into a corner.
The people of Cuba need more humiliation than that for them to wait up and do something for themselves is the only solution for them because we’re not suffering what they suffering every day
Thank you
Every time I feel less and less surprised by what the Cuban government is capable of doing, each and every one of its actions end up harming its people, when in fact the government without the people is nothing.
Horrible, more poverty instituted control. US money only and big businesses omg!!! So it’s only the goverment that can shop. Just say that…
Let the rest starve and continue to go without electricity and proper living areas with water and plumbing.
This Cuban Government is drowning… only so many countries will bail him out for so long. Watch ….it’s happened before.
Are we still questioning who bennefits from these so called reforms?. People wake up, today’s end goal for the Castro Regime is to steal as much money they can from the cubans living abroad (we are the ones directly fueling the regime everytime we send money to our families for food and basic needs) and when the time comes to leave Cuba, they already have accumulated enough money to live the rest of their lives abroad like real capitalists; we can call them Cuban Oligarchs, because that is what they are.
Just allow capitalism and the prices will be determined by the evil forces of supply and demand
Another gimmick, another plan that will fail like all other master plans of the past. The only way out of this nightmare is a free society and a free market. Let people fail or succeed on their own. The socialist experiment has not worked and will not work with more gimmicks.
Some President must have secretly signed something with China and Russia that prevents the US from entering Cuba. Having Cuban family I have seen the poverty and its real. It is unfortunate that the Cubans people that do not have family abroad are the ones suffering the most only because of politics. But the president’s son is hanging in Hollywood with the elite. Verify for yourselves.
Just to line the pockets of the Castro Crime Syndicate. Nothing for the people as they starve.
And still crying after 65 years of repression, and the so called Imperialism dollars, but you have to pay only in US Dollars.
From a centralized economy to a free market , China has become overnight a great economic superpower by introducing new reforms to their brand of communism
They have a Costco replica nearby that’s been open for years. So, what’s the big deal?
They have Chinese spy base, Russian spy base and nothing happens.
Wholesale market that sells products priced in dollars? Tell me again how the US “blockade” has kept products from being sold in Cuba?
It’s very disheartening to see the people going hungry because of these illogical reforms. Tourists like myself are dispirited and apathetic about planning future trips to Cuba.