14ymedio, Madrid, 30 January 2024 — Economic reforms are coming together for the Cuban Government, which is expected to announce changes in the foreign exchange market this February. In the first Council of Ministers session held this year, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, set an immediate date on a priority issue for the country, although the words he chose for the announcement sowed more doubts than clarifications.
“It is said that the Cuban Government’s projections include intervention ’from the’ informal foreign exchange market, but it is not clear if it meant intervention ’in’ the market. Perhaps it expresses a confusion between intervention and exchange policy,” Cuban economist Pedro Monreal wrote in his X account.
In Monreal’s opinion, expressed in a second message, “intervention (an instrument) can be useful to contain fluctuations in the exchange rate and stabilize it, but it is not effective for making permanent changes in rates resulting from an exchange rate policy that is not compatible with general macroeconomic policy.”
“A lot of work is being done on this because of the impact it has on promoting a productive stimulus”
Gil announced that regulations will be announced in February to “reorder local development projects” and decentralize the price approval of natural and traditional medicine. Then he talked about what is really important. “In that month, progress will also be made in the presentation of proposals to restructure the foreign exchange market, intervene in the informal market and control the type of exchange in the country, which includes the determination of the exchange rate and the formation of prices. A lot of work is being done on this because of the impact it has on the promotion of a productive stimulus,” the minister said.
A month ago, during the joint television appearance of Gil and the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, to announce the first changes of the complicated package to stabilize the economy, the official had already referred to the great importance of the foreign exchange market, which he con
