Reality in “MLC” (Cuba’s Magnetic Currency)

By Xel2 (El Toque)

HAVANA TIMES – This week we have drawn on the freely convertible currency (MLC), the Cuban digital currency that substitutes the disappeared CUC. It is a currency whose exchange rate has not stopped growing in the informal market and in which most of the essential products are now offered in a network of stores throughout the country with the prices in USD.

Its about a phenomenon that represents a loss for the average citizen and a profit for those who invented it. According to the official discourse, initially only “high-end products” would be sold in the MLC with the intention of “reinserting that currency into the national industry” and “importing children’s milk.” Now there is almost no milk for children, Cuban industry is virtually non-existent and a product of any quality can appear in those stores.

The appearance of the MLC was a turning point that enhanced the differences between those who can obtain this currency through payments and remittances from abroad and those who can only do so on the illicit market with their devalued peso salaries and pensions.

These days the MLC has been overtaken by the US dollar, an unprecedented trend since the circulation of the new Cuban magnetic currency, when obtaining it became the daily reality of Cubans to an extreme level. This does not appear in the news, like the reality shown in the government media; instead it throbs in the streets, in the lines and in the half-empty markets.

Greetings and happy Sunday,

 Wimar Verdecia Fuentes

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