The measure was due to come into effect on Monday for chicken, sausages, oil, spaghetti, powdered milk and detergent.
14ymedio, Havana, 1 July 2024 — As of this Monday, the prices capped for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) should be a reality. At least in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución (Havana), in Jobabo (Las Tunas) and in Pinar del Río, but local administrations have backtracked after publishing the new discounted prices for six basic necessities.
The items that from July 1 would have an “officially approved” price – as the authorities now say – were chicken, sausages, oil, pasta, powdered milk and powdered detergent. The prices were the same in the three provinces, except for a liter of cooking oil, which in Plaza de la Revolución is capped at 990 pesos and in Pinar del Río at 900. A half-kilogram package of pasta is capped at 415 pesos in Havana and 350 in Pinar del Río.
A kilo of chopped chicken could not exceed 680 pesos (a pound is set at 310 and and a 20-kilogram box at 13,600); milk powder, at 1,675 (500 grams are at 840); a kilo of sausages would have a maximum price of 1,045 (500 grams at 530 pesos and 340 grams at 350); pasta at 835 pesos, and detergent powder at 630.
The figures coincided with those provided by an unknown official source through an audio that ran like wildfire through the Island’s cell phones this weekend.
In the visit this Monday to a MSME of Plaza de la Revolución, they had no news of the new prices established
On the other hand, in Plaza de la Revolución, prices for other products, such as soft drinks, cookies and even fruits and vegetables were also capped. Thus, a pound of malanga cost 150 pesos, tomatoes cost 100, plantains 70, and guava and mango were capped at 50 pesos. The Ciego Montero canned soft drinks could not cost more than 200 pesos, the Bucanero and Perla Negra malts, 260, and the “little package” of cookies, 50.
On Monday’s visit to a MSME of that same municipality in Havana, they had no news of the prices established by the Government. Ten pounds of chicken thighs cost 4,000 pesos, and a kilo of chopped chicken breast was at 2,300, even though they didn’t have those items at the moment. A kilo of powdered milk cost 2,900 pesos, far from the 1,675 established.
While it is true that the authorities of Central Havana had not communicated a list of maximum prices, the differences in those indicated for other municipalities was notable for the MSMEs in the neighborhood. In San Lázaro, one business sold 10 pounds of chicken at 4,000, and a kilo of chopped chicken breast at 1,750 pesos, more than double what was established in Plaza de la Revolución. In Infanta, chicken was even more expensive: 4,500 for 10 pounds.
The “officially established “prices were part of the new measures announced by the Ministry of Finance and Prices on June 27 in a resolution published in the Official Gazette. The text did not specify prices but stated that “state entities, in the process of economic contracting with non-state management forms for the acquisition of goods and services” would agree