Starvation update: Cuba reduced imports by 31% in first half of 2023

From our Bureau of Abundance in Socialist Utopias with some assistance from our Bureau of Shifty Statistics Provided by Bankrupt Totalitarian Hellholes

The only surprise here is that the information on this 31% reduction in imports was provided by Castro, Inc., which means that the magnitude of this disaster must be much larger.

Apparently, Castro, Inc. is no longer able to buy as much stuff on credit as in years past. This enormous drop in imports can’t be blamed on the ‘blockade’ or on the payments in cash demanded by the U.S. for its food products. Its sole cause is the corrupt ineptitude of Castro, Inc., compounded by its abysmal record of defaulting on loans.

This drop in imports, coupled with the collapse of food production on the island –which cannot feed 11 million people — can only mean one thing: Cubans will be facing an intensification of their starvation in the immediate future. Add to this shortages in all the other stuff Castro, Inc does not produce and needs to import.

Naturally, those who will suffer are not the oligarchs of Castro, Inc., but the 99% of Cubans who don’t belong to the island’s ruling class.

Loosely translated from Periodico Cubano

Cuba reduced its imports by 30.8% during the first half of 2023 compared to the same period of the previous year, as confirmed by a recent report from the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLAC). The abrupt drop is the second largest collapse in the region, only surpassed by data from Haiti.

The deep economic crisis with a shortage of liquidity impacts the communist government’s availability of foreign currency to buy supplies such as food abroad. The above accentuates the food crisis experienced by the Cuban people, also subject to high prices as a result of rampant inflation.

When commenting on the ECLAC data, the Cuban economist Pedro Monreal, highlighted through Twitter the magnitude of the contraction, emphasizing the absence of information from the Cuban regime on the interannual data of trade in services, a vital sector for the country’s economy.

“Given the high weight of service exports in Cuba’s foreign trade, it is striking that Cuba was one of the three countries in the region that did not report to ECLAC their data on the interannual variation of foreign trade in services,” he says. Monreal raising questions about the government transparency of the regime.

Continue reading HERE in Spanish