A bottle of oil at 600 or 700 pesos, a package of chicken at 800, a bag of yellow milk at a thousand…, ads and offers that come to you from any network, both the one they call “social” and are built from anonymity of the internet like that other one that goes from mouth to mouth around the neighborhood and "solves" you, or rather, resells you, five pounds of rice at the end of the month.

A reality that is becoming more and more daily, to the point that what today seems expensive to us, an abuse against the pocket, in two months, perhaps, will no longer sound so alarming to the ear, because the escalation of prices continues in crescendo , and, with it, an inflation that, if it has not touched, as we well know, some basic services for the population, is multiplied in others, as in the trip that already costs 150 pesos from Old Havana to Santiago de las Vegas , a pound of lemon for 60 pesos that they sell you at the farm stand, or even the pair of shoes you had to buy for the child for 3,500 pesos.

But beyond the number – which in the first comeback makes you angry, makes you curse the reseller, who is taken advantage of, but then you end up, already resigned, paying, because it is about some product or service that, obviously, you need, and “Who knows if it gets lost later or they sell it to you even more expensively”–. It is worrying that it is not even an issue that is resolved by capping prices, regulating the acquisition of certain merchandise in commercial establishments, or other similar mechanisms.

When the offer is low and there is no constant supply flow, there will always be a promising loophole for speculation, and if you do not ask the user who, on the Telegram network, offers you the "bargain" of a box of chicken for 3,000 pesos.

At this point, control, that which must be exercised by inspectors and other government authorities, would come, if not to solve, at least to cut the ramifications of the problem; but here too, and not infrequently, the one who must issue the fine or control the queue is the one who takes advantage of the disorder.

It is also true that the sale of articles in freely convertible currency (although for the time being it is essential to attract foreign currency and guarantee vital services) and the existence of an informal, distorted exchange rate, in which the dollar already amounts to the exchange rate of 110 cup x 1 usd, has come to add tensions, especially, because the market that exists in cup is reduced to an offer focused on a minimum of basic products and without stable insurance, as a consequence of the financial situation that the country and the impact of the intensified blockade and the pandemic.

At the end of the chain, the one who loses the most in this spiral of prices is the consumer and, above all, who cannot spend the day in a queue, because they have to work.

However, other realities disguised as opportunism also come together here, since fuel is not sold to individuals in the so-called "hard currency", nor can state companies be efficient or pay profits at the expense of raising prices and selling at low prices mlc productions that do not have imported components, not even the one who is on stage can make more profit than the one who works the land. And all of that happens, and equally damaging.

What to do then? There has been talk on multiple occasions of the need to produce and offer more, and yes, the road is there, but it is not built alone, but is accompanied by a much more comprehensive strategy.

In this sense, it is urgent not only to diversify the economic actors and their faculties –as has been done in recent months–, but also that, in practice, they can perform without ties, that they are more of the mind and that they do not They have no paper backing.

Although the phenomenon where it is most expressed is in supply and demand prices, the way to curb this problem, as the authorities and experts have explained, is not to restore the purchasing power of wages, since it would lead us to more inflation and it would become the never ending story. Nor can all the prices of the economy be met –especially those of supply and demand–, because to do so we must have a guarantee that it can be met and that later the products are not lost from the platform and, in the end, are resold at a higher price.

The most effective measure, without a doubt, is to increase supply, but by producing more, betting on productive linkages with the different actors, in addition to correcting deviations in the payment of profits from the business system, working to control public spending and reduce the fiscal deficit. And transformations in the socialist state enterprise cannot be left out of the equation; the improvement of domestic trade; compliance with state retail commercial circulation in Cuban pesos; control of the impact of measures for prioritized attention to people, households and communities in situations of vulnerability; the efficiency of the investment process and prioritize national food production.

INDICATIONS FROM THE FIRST SECRETARY OF THE PCC

Production is what can balance supply and demand, it is what can get us out of inflation and it is what can also get us out of high prices. A market that we have to assume with different economic actors, but regulated by the State; a less administrative and bureaucratic strategic and financial planning and where there is a necessary balance between political-ideological, economic and administrative mechanisms, betting on productive linkages between economic actors and leaving behind its use as a slogan.

It is necessary to continue developing exports, and new exportable items in exports, and continue recovering the traditional ones; the concept of export pole that has been developed in a group of provinces; the closed cycle in companies, appropriating the elements of the circular economy.

It is urgent to solve the problems that arise in the state companies with losses; delve into the efficiency of companies and the costs of products; correct deviations from partial dollarization, which do not fit its design; concentrating the main effort on increasing the supply of goods and services to the population; in addition to achieving the reduction of the fiscal deficit, and thus contributing to the necessary macroeconomic balances.

More than 60 measures have been approved to stimulate the production and marketing of food and others that seek to increase the efficiency of the state company; as well as stimulating the action of the new economic actors through the so-called MSMEs, unblocking processes and chaining productions is part of a set of actions that complement the Economic-Social Strategy.

The matrix of economic actors has to advance in a structured and non-fragmented manner towards the goal of socialist construction; both the economic actors of the State, the state company, as well as the cooperative economic actors and the non-state sector have to work together, depending on and participating in the main economic and social development programs, in local development projects, and they have to All these economic actors must be articulated with the social actors, with the political actors and with the civil actors.

Source: Speeches delivered at the closing of the Provincial Assembly of the Havana Party, on April 9, 2022, and at the Eighth Period of Sessions of the ix Legislature of the National Assembly.