Cuban Convertible Peso Can’t Keep Up With The Dollar

Cuban Convertible Peso Can't Keep Up With The Dollar

14ymedio, Marcelo Hernandez, Havana, 4 July 2017 – Cuba's dual currency
system has been in existence for such a long time that many young people
never lived under a system with a single national peso. The rumors of
possible unification of the two currencies are no longer listened to and
people appear resigned to continuing to pay for things in both Cuban
convertible pesos (CUC) and Cuban pesos (CUP). The promise to resolve
this financial mess appears to be one more item that Raul Castro will
leave incomplete at the end of his term next year.

There are at least some certainties, however, in this economic
schizophrenia: the alter ego of the Cuban peso is not the Convertible
peso, but rather the dollar. The so-called chavito – a slang term for
the CUC – that emerged in the decade of the '90s, is just a substitute
for the "currency of the enemy," a camouflage to cover over Abraham
Lincoln's face or Benjamin Franklin's head. Little by little, the bills
minted by our neighbor to the north have imposed themselves in the
informal market.

The terrain won by the dollar is expressed in many ways. Not only in the
classified ads that specify payment is accepted in USD for the products
on offer, but also in the existence of an exchange system parallel to
that of the official banking system, where the "greenbacks" are quoted
at a price ranging from 0.95 to 0.97 CUC. It is also evidenced in nice
pictures like the one attached to this article, where the chavito is
conspicuous by its absence on the man's T-shirt. After all, the CUC is
nothing more than an imitation of Uncle Sam's money.

Source: Cuban Convertible Peso Can't Keep Up With The Dollar –
Translating Cuba -
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