The Cuban government will regulate the price of chicken sold by micro, small and medium-sized businesses (MSMEs), at a time when food shortages and high inflation force the population to pay high prices for the products.
The Minister of Finance and Prices, Vladimir Regueiro Ale, announced on the television Round Table a regulation of maximum prices for certain basic products, regardless of who markets them.
Regueiro pointed out that chicken is an imported product and that the State must make "so many efforts" to guarantee its basic consumption through the regulated family basket.
"And then we see marketing parallel to figures, at prices that really border on speculative and abusive, when we review the real costs and in the markets where they are being acquired," he questioned.
The leader stressed that "it is not about regulating everything," since that would make a system impossible to manage and would limit the dynamics of price coordination, but he stressed that "there is consumption that must be protected for the population."
"Other regulations have to be in correspondence with the productive characteristics of the territories, the capacities and even the levels of consumption, and that is where agricultural products are," he said.
Finally, the owner stated that the price agreement mechanism needs "more rigor and systematicity", as well as strengthening regulations and control, and admitted that "at the moment we have a fairly depressed supply from the state supply side." ".
This measure is announced at a time when the chicken meat exports from the United States to Cuba (including agreements with state clients and with MSMEs) have decreased drastically for the second consecutive month.
Data from the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) reveal that in October the figures fell 26.5% in value and 32% in tons, reaching their lowest level since June 2020, when the world was in the midst of a pandemic.
The value recorded that month reached $1.30 per kilogram of American chicken, the highest price of the five-year period.
In a country where The minimum wage is 2,100 CUP pesos, MSMEs make a killing taking advantage of the zero state offer.
In August, a MSMEs sold boxes of frozen chicken straight from the container in a park in Havana in which the merchandise was imported. They did it, according to their members, to avoid intermediaries and lower the price.
Uruguayan journalist Fernando Ravsberg shared a photo of the truck with the container parked on the street next to a pile of boxes of Golden Phoenix brand chicken. On a tree, a handwritten sign reported that a 10-kilogram box of chicken was sold for 5,700 CUP pesos.
In June, the MSMEs on San Rafael Boulevard sold the 40-pound boxes of chicken from Spain at 10,000 CUP pesos, 80 dollars at the official exchange rate.
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