The Cuban government will start selling tractors to farmers in freely convertible currency, through MLC stores that will receive this equipment sold by the Logistics Business Group of the Ministry of Agriculture (Gelma).
According to a note published in the official body Granma, about 2,000 customers have already visited the units interested in this equipment and “628 purchases have been made, most of which belong to manufacturers and only 17 from the business sector”.
The data reveal who are the actors who are determined to invest in the Cuban agricultural sector. With only 2.7% of the acquisitions made by the state sector, it is clear that small farmers and land tenants are investing money to improve their production capacity.
Peasants are not allowed to market their products in this currency, so the Ministry of Agriculture must consider whether this is the ideal way to empower Cuban rural producers, and to make agriculture prosper ruined by the management of a state economy.
In mid-October, the Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, announced that the government will start selling MLC tickets for agricultural production in the country.
“We will keep up with the equipment, the tractors, little by little we will supply that market as far as we can make these sales. What mechanisms do we use for these sales? Basically, the imported transport goods “, said Gil Fernández.
The minister explained that the suppliers “put the tractors we sell for transport in the country and pay for them when we sell them. With the currency we get, we pay the supplier and he puts more tractors and thus we provide, by transport, without having to make a capital expenditure or an advance ”.
“Independent producers, associated with the forms of production and state-owned companies will be able to purchase, through MLC stores in Cuba, Belarus and New Holland tractors in Belarus and Brazil, respectively,” the Granma note reads. What the media and the state-owned company Gelma did not say is the price of these tractors.
If the sale of this car follows the same commercial logic used by the opaque companies of the regime that has a monopoly on imports into Cuba, it is assumed that the price of tractors will double or triple their real market value. If the government can sell a Kia Sportage SUV for $ 50,000When the market price of a model with all the extras is about 25 thousand dollars, it will be necessary to fear that the prices of tractors follow the same logic.
In the hypothetical case that this is the case, a New Holland TT4.75 tractor will be sold (to put a model promoted by Gelma), which on the international market is about 50 thousand dollars, can cost about 100 thousand dollars in Cuba. Most likely, the tractor for sale has hours of use, which would reduce the price on a free market, but in the case of the Cuban company if the price of its tractor had doubled or tripled that of the market It will be the fault of “tightening the blockade.
In the unlikely event that the official exchange rate is maintained and the Cuban authorities allow the purchase of foreign currency, those Cuban peasants and agricultural producers who are interested in buying a tractor should raise 2 million, 400 thousand pesos to buy it. .
“Independent producers interested in this equipment must deliver the documentation that accredits them as a producer and for land ownership,” explains the company Gelma. The note published by the official body of the Cuban Communist Party, without any shame, informs that “the commercial way in MLC was an opportunity that, from September 10 last year, Gelma took advantage of, to look for alternatives to the difficulties caused by the intensification of the blockade .
In this way, the Ministry of Agriculture provides for “the marketing of 32 new national production lines, such as multilayer bags for coal, egg tray, boots, vinyl paints, gloves, jute bags, wagons, multilayers, flat sheets, plastic buckets. , multipurpose boxes and sanitation products “, according to Granma.
The note concludes by celebrating the fact that with this initiative to sell “new lines” in MLC to independent farmers, “they managed to raise about $ 300,000.” The liberalization of productive forces capable of creating wealth in the country will be a complicated process for those who call “collecting” to make a profit.
In the current conditions of the Cuban economy and society, the claim that prosperity comes from the activity of poorly paid producers, abused by abusive prices, is further proof of how disoriented is the elitist mentality of regime leaders, who seem only worried about capturing foreign exchange. .
“It simply came to our notice then. It is a first step and we have already opened up in three provinces with a group of products and we are expanding this possibility that did not exist before, “said Minister Gil Fernández in October last year.” In this context, it is necessary to take this type. of bold measures, which does not mean at all the dollarization of the country, but it is necessary to look for certain productive circuits that work independently of the allocation of central financing “, he said.