SANTIAGO DE CUBA, January 28 (Luis Alberto Rivera, APLO) – Consumers
here have been slowly coming to the realization that a lot of the products sold
in the government-run dollar stores are of domestic manufacture. The products in
question are mostly basic foodstuffs.
For example, a one kilogram package of powdered milk produced in Bayamo,
Granma province, sells for 5.80 dollars and a half-kilogram package for 3
dollars. The current exchange rate is 21 pesos to the dollar. A kilogram is 2.2
pounds.
Other prices, all in dollars:
Sugar, refined, 1.80 a kilogram.
Rice, packed in Havana, 1.65 a one
kilogram package.
A 500 gram can of powdered milk and cereal, 2 dollars.
A 454 gram (one pound) can of powdered milk and cereal, orange-flavored, 2.10.
A 500 gram can of the same, chocolate-flavored, 2.35.
Chocolate milk, 454
gram can, 2.10
Wheat flour, 16.80 for a 20 kilogram sack.
Toilet
paper, four rolls 1 dollar.
Consumers are outraged at this new development, but nevertheless scrape
together what few dollars they can to buy items they feel they should be able to
buy in pesos.
When the dollar stores first opened they sold imported items not otherwise
available in the island, mostly to diplomats and dollar-bearing foreigners.
Indeed, in the beginning Cubans were not allowed in the stores; prospective
patrons had to show a passport to gain admittance. Later, Cubans were allowed to
shop, primarily for small appliances and other foreign-made goods, with dollars
sent by relatives living abroad.
Now it seems the government has found a way to export its domestic
production without ever having to ship it off the island and increase its
revenue in foreign exchange all at the same time, by selling Cuban-made goods to
Cubans in dollars.
The problem, as people here point out, is that the average salary amounts to
about 10 dollars a month, and many of the goods offered in the dollar stores are
not available in the peso markets.
Versión original
en español
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