Cuba Siglo XXI publishes a report signed by economist Emilio Morales
14ymedio, Madrid, July 25, 2024 — In three key points – the collapse of medical service exports, the fall in remittances and the debacle of tourism – economist Emilio Morales deciphers the collapse of the “Cuban system.” In the most recent report of the organization Cuba Siglo 21, based in Madrid, the researcher says that there has been a drop of more than 50% in the Government’s main sources of foreign currency, which will “reach the 71st anniversary of the assault on the Moncada barracks with a country in “countdown.” Published this Thursday, the report documents how one of the most powerful foreign exchange inflows that Cuba had – the export of medical services – fell by 78% since 2013, when it generated 10.42 billion dollars for the Regime.
According to the report to Parliament by the Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, in 2023, Cuba lost 63.939 billion pesos, which, with the official exchange rate of 24 to 1, is equivalent to a loss of 2.664 billion dollars for the Island. The largest part of these revenues corresponds to medical services, managed by Gaesa, the economic arm of the Army, through the company Comercializadora de Servicios Médicos and the Banco Financiero Internacional y de Antex S.A, another company designed to handle contracts for the Cuban doctors in the exterior, says Morales.
“Gaesa has pocketed no less than 69.8 billion dollars of the 108.5 billion it has collected from doctors’ salaries” between 2008 and 2023, summarizes the economist, who supports his conclusion with a graph. That money “never returned to the reconstruction of hospitals, acquisition of equipment and medical supplies, or to improve the conditions of patient care.”
The Government, in fact, invested only 1.7 billion dollars in Public Health in 2023, a figure that contrasts with the 24.2 billion invested in the construction of hotels. On the other hand, remittances also decreased in 2023. The entry into the country
