14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 20 December 2023 — The unsustainable economic situation of the Island has led the Government to establish a shock plan starting at the beginning of 2024. Among the main measures announced by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero on the first day of the second ordinary session of the National Assembly, are the increases in prices of products and services and the end of the universal subsidy for the basic food basket sold through the rationing system.
Regarding the rationed market, Marrero argued that the objective is to move to “subsidizing people and not products” to achieve “a more fair and efficient scheme,” tacitly recognizing the increase in social and economic inequalities.
“It is not fair that those who have a lot receive the same as those who have very little. Today we subsidize the same to an elderly pensioner as to the owner of large private businesses who has a lot of money,” he argued.
Thus, he continued, the Ministry of Labor and Social Security must identify people by their degree of “vulnerability,” so as to “not leave anyone helpless.” The latter group will be able to continue acquiring highly subsidized basic products with the ration card.
Marrero stressed that this classification will be carried out in “the coming weeks and months,” without further details.
Prominent among these increases are the 25% increase in the electricity rate for the 6% of the residential sector that consumes the most, and the move to require tourists to pay for fuel in foreign currency
The head of the Cuban Government also assured that, given the situation, the State cannot continue with the