Gloomy outlook for Cuba's logistics sector
Investment and freight transport services decline significantly as recession bites
Cuban investment and freight transport services fell significantly through June as the Caribbean nation wrestled with the twin dragons of a two-year-old financial crisis and recession, according to government reports released this week.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) painted a gloomy picture of the Cuban economy, revealing that all investment, in foreign and domestic currency (pesos) fell 14.7% in the first half of the year, and freight traffic declined 12.2%, on the same period in 2009.
With further reductions in spending in place, Cuba’s economic problems seem likely to continue for a while.
The declines followed severe budget cuts and a reduction of more than US$5 billion, or 30%, in imports last year as Cuba fought off the combined effects of the international financial crisis, hurricanes, policy errors and the long-standing US trade embargo.
President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother, Fidel, in early 2008, replaced his economic cabinet last year and declared the country had to live within its means and improve efficiency.
Castro has warned of hard times ahead, while promising to modernise the Soviet-style economy, the last on the planet, except for North Korea.
He announced last month that as many as 20% of the state’s labour force (1.2 million people) may lose their jobs or be transferred over the next five years, but said he would allow more family businesses and private hiring to recruit more.
The National Statistics Office (NSO) painted a gloomy picture of the Cuban economy, revealing that all investment, in foreign and domestic currency (pesos) fell 14.7% in the first half of the year, and freight traffic declined 12.2%, on the same period in 2009.
With further reductions in spending in place, Cuba’s economic problems seem likely to continue for a while.
The declines followed severe budget cuts and a reduction of more than US$5 billion, or 30%, in imports last year as Cuba fought off the combined effects of the international financial crisis, hurricanes, policy errors and the long-standing US trade embargo.
President Raul Castro, who took over from his brother, Fidel, in early 2008, replaced his economic cabinet last year and declared the country had to live within its means and improve efficiency.
Castro has warned of hard times ahead, while promising to modernise the Soviet-style economy, the last on the planet, except for North Korea.
He announced last month that as many as 20% of the state’s labour force (1.2 million people) may lose their jobs or be transferred over the next five years, but said he would allow more family businesses and private hiring to recruit more.
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