HAVANA — Until not too long ago, the distance was once the one-car storage of a private house in Cuba’s capital, Havana. Today, it’s a well-stocked, if small, grocery retailer whose large board on the gate entices consumers with such choices as cooking oil, tomato sauce, Hershey’s cocoa powder, Nutella, shampoo, cookies and jam — a treasure trove in a nation this is in need of provides.
The anonymous store within the residential community of El Vedado is considered one of dozens of tiny grocery stores that experience sprung up round Cuba in contemporary months. Locals confer with them as “mipymes” — pronounced MEE-PEE-MEHS. The title derives from the Spanish phrases for the small- and medium-sized enterprises that have been first allowed to open in 2021.
By permitting the brand new companies, the Cuban executive was hoping to assist an financial system in disaster and fortify native manufacturing. The nearly 9,000 enterprises licensed up to now come with the likes of stitching workshops, fisheries and building corporations, but it’s small retail stores like the only in Vedado that appear to be putting in the quickest.
They even have better visibility a few of the inhabitants as a result of they provide many merchandise now not to be had in different places and normally perform out of private properties or garages.
Yet regardless of their modest setup, their costs are a long way from inexpensive, even for a physician or a instructor, who make about 7,000 Cuban pesos a month (about $28 within the parallel marketplace).
For instance, one kilo (2.2 kilos) of powdered milk from the Czech Republic prices 2,000 Cuban pesos (about $8). A jar of Spanish mayonnaise is going for $4. Two and a part pounds (about 5 kilos) of hen imported from the U.S. price $8. There also are much less very important items: a jar of Nutella for $5, a bottle of bubbly Spanish wine for $6.
The shoppers ready to make use of those small stores come with Cuban households who obtain remittances from in a foreign country, tourism employees, diplomats, staff of alternative small- and medium-sized companies, artists and high-performance athletes.
“This is a luxury,” Ania Espinosa, a state worker, mentioned as she left one retailer in Havana, the place she paid $1.50 (350 Cuban pesos) for a packet of potato chips for her daughter. “There are people who don’t earn enough money to shop at a mipyme, because everything is very expensive,” she added.
In addition to her monthly state salary, Espinosa makes some additional income and receives remittances from her husband, who has lived in the U.S. for a year and a half and previously lived in Uruguay.
A few meters (yards) away, Ingracia Virgen Cruzata, a retiree, lamented the high prices at the shop. “I retired with 2,200 (Cuban pesos a month or $8.80) last year and I can’t even buy a package of chicken,” she said.
Most of the products found in these stores are imported directly by the entrepreneurs through state-run import agencies, a system that has also opened the door to the emergence of bigger, better stocked stores.
In recent weeks, a private store, accessible only to those who own a car, opened on the outskirts of Havana, featuring giant shelves full of imported products such as Tide detergent, M&M’s candy and Goya brand black beans. Because of its size (it’s at least 10 times larger than the store in Vedado) — and diverse offerings — it has come to be known as the “Cuban Costco.”
Cuba’s retail marketplace has been very restricted, and for many years the communist state held a monopoly on maximum kinds of retail gross sales, import and export, beneath the argument that it is important to distribute merchandise equitably.
The ration books that let Cubans to shop for small amounts of elementary items like rice, beans, eggs and sugar each and every month for fee similar to a few U.S. cents proceed to be the foundation of the style, permitting households to subsist for approximately 15 days. The leisure in their nutrition should be obtained via different shops, together with state-owned stores and now the mipymes.
There also are state-run companies providing a little extra selection to finish home wishes, but they price in native debit or world credit playing cards. The novelty is that the small stores like the only in Vedado and larger bodegas just like the “Cuban Costco” are solely private and settle for bills in Cuban pesos.
“For the first time in 60 years, small- and medium-sized private corporations are now authorized by law. Now the challenge is for them to prosper in a very arid landscape for private initiative,” mentioned Pedro Freyre, an analyst with the Florida-based Akerman Consulting and professor at Miami Law School.
“Cuba is a socialist country. The fundamental ideology has not changed. That’s still there. But I think that Cuba is in a very difficult economic moment and that has opened a door,” Freyre added.
___
Follow AP’s protection of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
post credit to Source link