Despite the general crisis facing the country, the Cuban regime investedfour times more in hotels and restaurants than in Public Health and Social Assistance in the first half of 2023, according to a report from the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI).
The graph indicates that the investment from January to June in health and social assistance was only 583.3 million pesos; while it allocated 2,325.3 million to hotels and restaurants.
For economist Pedro Monreal, the official investment statistics "confirm the persistence of a deformed investment structure in Cuba," which once again prioritized "activities mainly articulated around tourism, despite the notable difficulties in attracting tourists."
Criticizes that this first half of 2023 also confirms atrend started in 2022, when the weight of investment in "hotels and restaurants" increased and decreased in "business services and real estate."
"The sum of both was reduced in 2023, but it accounts for 30.6% of national investment," he stressed.
The specialist also drew attention that in the midst of a worsening food insecurity situation, agricultural investment remained stagnant at a very low level of 2.6% of total national investment. He said this trend is worrying in a sector that is also the country's largest employer.
"The data could suggest that the reduction in the percentage of investment associated with tourism since 2021 “improves” the investment pattern. However, in the 1st half of 2023 its gap with respect to agricultural investment increased (17.7 times greater compared to with 7.7 times in 2020)," he stated.
In this regard, he said that the regime invested more in “Public administration, defense, social security” than in the agricultural sector and almost eight times more than in “science and technological research.”
Investment in this last area represented only 0.5% of the total investment.
Monreal has warned that prioritizing investment in tourism to the detriment of basic sectors aimed at the population is wrong and will have, in the long run, a significant political cost.
Receiving 2.5 million international visitors in 2022 would "left over" just over half of Cuba's hotel rooms (69 tourists rotating per room in 2018 vs. 32 in 2022), so it would be prudent to take a "pause" in the investment hotel company to attend to "other priorities," he warned last year.
At that time, there are 77,809 hotel rooms on the island, a figure that represents a growth of 13% in relation to those existing in 2020, which would seem sufficient given tourism projections, which instead of increasing have reduced: the government estimated the arrival of 2.5 million tourists at the end of 2022, and in October lowered the figure to 1.7 million.
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