A campaign has emerged today against small businesses known as MIPYMESwhere Cubans can only buy with dollars, and everything is very expensive. But, at least in these stores, Cubans don’t have to wait hours in the sun to buy food and basic products like soap and toilet paper.
For Cubans who continue to suffer from shortages of medicine and basic necessities, these small shops at least provide a stable supply of goods.
From an economic perspective, it is a mistake to control prices MIPYMES because private businesses do not operate like state-run ones, and should not be fined for setting prices when necessary. But it is clear that those who do not have access to dollars depend on the country for food.
The result of this new repression is the disappointment of foreign investors who might want to bring money to the country and invest in the island with their own capital. But Cubans will also continue to leave the island as soon as possible.
Marxism’s relentless efforts to manipulate the private sector have never led to growth or prosperity. On the contrary, they hinder entrepreneurial initiatives, reduce investment, and impoverish the population.
The government has sent an army of inspectors and officials dedicated to surveillance, but insists it is not a war on small businesses. Of course, they have raised resistance to these small shops, where dollars do not pass through the hands of the communist, controlling, and oppressive regime that is in power. Small business owners know they are a threat to the dictatorship because most of the dollars flowing into the island cannot be controlled.
An economist named Gustavo… believes that “when government measures are analyzed coldly, they cannot find economic or political logic. Almost all these regulations are counterproductive. In the short term, there will be an escalation of inflation. The wise will have half a million or a million MIPYMES. Eleven thousand now is just a small, symbolic figure. There is a conceptual error: private businesses, due to the low salaries of state sector employees and pensioners, are not designed to meet the demands of low-income people, the majority of whom are Cubans.
«It is difficult to enter a private market and see a clean and clean store with imported products of higher quality and design than those available to the population through the ration book, and not be able to buy them. MIPYMES not a neighboring state-owned store. The government should remember that the private sector does its business with its own money, not with public funds. These policies encourage investment and foreign investment from Cuba abroad. In addition, the lack of a sustainable supply of goods and services will reduce the purchasing power of state employees and retirees, increase prices, and Cubans will continue to migrate.
“What we really need to do, to stop the multi-system crisis and inflation, is to reduce taxes so that private businesses can grow, allow foreign companies to pay their employees directly, and privatize more than 300 inefficient state-owned companies. And, most importantly, reduce the huge bureaucratic apparatus of the country,” said the economist.
Main articles about Mipymes and original interviews for private business owners can be found on various sites such as directoriocubano.info, eldebate.com and diariolasamericas.com
Flor Elena Robledo is a journalist and communicator with experience in «Sábado Gigante» and Univision, destacándose en comunicación pública y traducción simultanea. This is periodismo, entrevistado and figuras públicas and trabajado en TUVU and MegaTv, and see many sights and history. Enroll in the title in Periodismo from Radiodifusión at Florida International University and study Periodismo in Español.
