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The National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI) published this month its Consumer Price Index report (CPI) for May 2026, confirming the persistence of high inflation that is accelerating in Cuba.
According to the official document, the overall CPI stood at 551.47 points based on the December 2010 benchmark, with a monthly variation of 1.85%, a cumulative variation of 9.16% between January and May, and a year-on-year variation of 15.89%.
The total for the first five months exceeds the 7.45% recorded in the same period of 2025, indicating that the inflationary process is accelerating, not slowing down.
The upward trend is sustained: the year-on-year variation went from 12.52% in January to 12.33% in February, 13.42% in March, 14.73% in April, and 15.89% in May, according to the accumulated inflation data for 2026.
The categories that drove prices up the most in May were Restaurants and Hotels, with a monthly variation of 2.93% and a year-on-year accumulation of 26.54%, followed by Food and non-alcoholic beverages, which saw a monthly increase of 2.26% and a year-on-year rise of 19.24%.
Within the food basket, the items that had the greatest impact on the monthly increase were pork, powdered milk, ham, mutton, and ground coffee.
The ONEI also simultaneously published a report on minimum and maximum prices by province that helps identify significant territorial disparities.
Guantánamo emerges as the most expensive province for several essential products: bottled oil reaches 1,555.56 pesos per liter, whole powdered milk costs 1,739.13 pesos for 500 grams, white cheese is priced at 1,000 pesos per pound, and fresh fish costs 600 pesos per pound.
On the opposite end, Pinar del Río records the lowest prices for much of the observed basket, with bottled oil starting at 1,200 pesos per liter, rice starting at 220 pesos per pound, and eggs starting at 95 pesos per unit.
In Havana, the prices are also striking: lemons reach 900 pesos per pound, oranges 1,500 pesos, and garlic 1,920 pesos.
However, the fact that Pinar del Río is the cheapest province does not mean that prices are affordable for most Cubans.
The economist Javier Pérez Capdevila estimated that Cubans need about 96,000 pesos to cover basic necessities monthly, of which 70,070 are solely for food, while the official average salary in 2025 was only 6,930 pesos, equivalent to about 10 dollars.
That gap, more than 13 times between the average income and the estimated cost of living, illustrates the extent of the deterioration of the population's purchasing power.
Economist Pedro Monreal has also warned about the "questionable reliability" of official statistics, noting that the CPI likely underestimates real inflation, and that the combination of rising prices with an estimated decline in GDP could lead to a stagflation situation in Cuba.
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