Juan Carlos Linares / CubaNet
HAVANA, September - Well before the National Bank of Cuba announced that
after October 15 only convertible Cuban coins may circulate in the country, the
word in the street was that the government had acquired machines capable of
counting them.
There is also a rumor that the government is minting a national currency
that will substitute the convertible Cuban peso. Supposedly, workers in the
tourism sector and others involved in bringing hard currency into the country
will be paid with this new type of currency.
At the end of 2000, banks in the island were levying a surcharge to those
who deposited convertible pesos, explaining that the counting machines only
counted dollars and the convertibles had to be counted by hand.
The primary sources of dollars for the Cuban economy are tourism and the
remittances sent to relatives by Cubans abroad, but these are not enough.
There are recent reports of Cuban ships transporting fuel stuck in port
waiting for payment, and of ships that have had to leave unladen for lack of the
money with which to pay.
Several currencies circulate in Cuba simultaneously: the Cuban peso, at the
current exchange rate of 22 to the dollar; the convertible peso, or scrip,' as
people refer to it; the dollar proper; and lesser amounts of Spanish pesetas,
Canadian dollars and others.
People are concerned about the announced changes, fearing they could
encompass more than they now appear to. Cubans recall previous periods of
uncertainty in the government's monetary policy, which in Cuba doesn't have to
do with interest rates, but rather with, for instance, whether just having
dollars is illegal, as it was a few years ago.
Since the dollar was depenalized six years ago, ever more establishments,
including those run by the government, accept only dollars, and it has become
evident to people that the U. S. currency can buy things the peso can't.
Versión
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