| 01.01.2021 – 20:06 (GMT-4)
More than 500 commercial units in Cuba will start receiving pesos payments this month convertibles (CUC), a measure that reverses the government’s willingness to limit stores that could accept that currency.
The entities of the Caracol chain of stores, of the extra-hotel company Palmares, of the Agency for artistic and literary promotions (Artex) and of the Company of recordings and music editions (EGREM) will start receiving the payment in CUC, as announced in its account officially on Twitter, Marino Murillo, the head of the implementation of economic guidelines in the country.
“The conditions were created so that starting today, gradually, CUC will be accepted in over 500 new units of the Caracol, Palmares, Artex and Egrem Oficial chains across the country, in addition to those in Cimex and Caribe,” the official reported. .
However, the so-called “Tsar of the Cuban economy” did not mention that this “countermeasure” could be due to complaints and questions from Cubans about the impossibility of making payments in CUC in the network of national stores, after the last day 2, the government announced a list of the only commercial entities that would accept the payment in convertible pesos until June, the month in which the currency must come out of circulation under the process of monetary unification.
The announcement clarifies that the return to customers will be given only in Cuban pesos (CUP), with an exchange rate of 1 CUC x 24 CUP. It also indicates that payment in CUP is accepted in all values of that currency, and partial payments combining both coins and magnetic cards are accepted in the same purchase.
In December 2020, an edition of the Official Gazette in “Zero Zero” for monetary unification in Cuba reported that CUC will be out of circulation in June 2021 and from that date it would be accepted for exchange only in exchange offices and bank branches in the country.
The process of monetary unification in Cuba began on January 1, 2021, with a single exchange rate of 24 Cuban pesos (CUP) for $ 1. The measure involves “redesigning citizens’ monetary, exchange, tax, credit, price, salary and other income systems,” said President Miguel Díaz-Canel.
Since 1994, the Central Bank of Cuba has authorized the circulation of the convertible peso (CUC), equivalent to the dollar, as part of regulations promoted by the late Fidel Castro in the midst of a severe economic crisis called the “Special Period” after the collapse of the socialist camp in Eastern Europe.
In mid-2003, the island’s government eliminated the circulation of the dollar in the state sector, and since then only two national currencies have been authorized: the Cuban peso (CUP) and the Cuban convertible peso (CUC). In 2004 the measure was extended to retail trade.
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