Cubans are going to buy from Haiti, the poorest country in the hemisphere

Dozens of Cubans are arriving weekly to buy in Haiti. They look for in the poorest country in Latin America what is scarce on the Island.

According to a report from the agencyAP, hundreds of Cubans walk around Port-au-Prince, the Haitian capital, shopping every day. “There are thousands, everywhere,” said Angelina Luis Domínguez, from Havana, who sells Cuban food to those who come to buy. “Before there were four or five; now it has been undermined,” he says.

He gives them the same: Russia, Guyana, Ecuador, Panama, orany viable destination to go shopping things that do not exist in Cuba.

Both Haitians and Cubans mutually benefit from the purchases and sales of products such as household items, technology, clothing or footwear, among others.

Solike in Guyana or PanamaThere is an entire network that hosts, transports or sells food to Cuban "businessmen", Haitians have detected that they can also benefit from this demand. They play Cuban reggaeton for the clients, they sell them coffee, they hang Cuban flags on them. Or, as in the case of Angelina, they offer black beans, rice and roast pork to the countrymen.

“I have a Panama visa, a Mexican visa, but I like Haiti,” says Cuban Eduardo Leiva, who has a hardware business on the island. “There is a lot of variety of merchandise, there is a level of products that there really is not in other countries".

For his part, Haitian salesman Terese Rencher said: “Cubans are very good for us. "They come, they take the merchandise back to their house and we can make a small profit."

According to Rencher, with this business he was able to send his 23-year-old daughter to university.

For taxi driver Braulio Hernández, who goes to Haiti to buy tools and parts for his car repair shop, coming to that country has several benefits: “Compared to Russia, Haiti is closer, it is not cold and the merchandise is practically the same. herself.”

Some Cubans who offered their testimony said they had been victims of robberies at the hands of young people who knew they were carrying large sums of cash. However, preferring this closer trip.

Although Hatí does not appear in thelist of countries on the continent visa-free for Cubans, apparently arranging a visa is not as difficult as it is for other places.

Dozens of Cubans arrive in Haiti weekly on the airline Sunrise Airways, which operates 12 direct flights per week between Havana, Camaguey and Santiago de Cuba, and Port-au-Prince.

Despite the fact that, according to figures, two out of every three Haitians live on less than two dollars a day; Even though 100,000 children under 5 years old suffer from acute malnutrition and less than 50% of households have access to clean water, desperate Cubans see it as an option.

In recent times, Cubans have been investing a lot of money in those countries that serve as shopping destinations. In the case of Panama,country that has guaranteed a tourist cardFor those Cubans who want to invest, the island's citizens left 308 million dollars last year, and are on track to spend perhaps up to 8% more in 2018, according to Luis Carlos Saenz, deputy general director of the free zone.

“Now we have an important Cuban clientele that comes to shop and makes a significant contribution to the businesses in the area,” he stated.