The Cuban gov­ern­ment said Fri­day it will have to ei­ther in­crease prices for fu­el and elec­tric­i­ty, or re­duce ra­tions for ba­sic sup­plies.

Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel said such dif­fi­cult mea­sures were need­ed for dif­fi­cult times, af­ter the min­is­ter of the econ­o­my said Cu­ba’s econ­o­my con­tract­ed be­tween 1% and 2% this year, and in­fla­tion ran at about 30%. There were prob­lems in the tourism in­dus­try — Cu­ba’s main source of in­come — and in farm pro­duc­tion.

“This is a ques­tion of com­pli­cat­ed mea­sures, as com­pli­cat­ed as are these times,” Díaz-Canel said. “I em­phat­i­cal­ly de­ny that this is neo-lib­er­al plan against the peo­ple, nor a cru­sade against small busi­ness­es, nor an elim­i­na­tion of the ba­sic mar­ket bas­ket” that Cubans can get with gov­ern­ment coupons.

Prime Min­is­ter Manuel Mar­rero Cruz said that be­cause of eco­nom­ic prob­lems, the gov­ern­ment will have to raise prices for gaso­line, elec­tric­i­ty and gas, or re­duce the amount of food and oth­er ba­sics con­tained in gov­ern­ment ra­tion books.

The re­marks came in ap­pear­ances at the clos­ing ses­sions of Cu­ba’s Na­tion­al As­sem­bly of Peo­ple’s Pow­er, ef­fec­tive­ly Cu­ba’s con­gress.

The eco­nom­ic cri­sis in Cu­ba has al­ready pushed hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple to leave in a bid to reach the Unit­ed States. Long lines at gaso­line sta­tions had got­ten short­er re­cent­ly, but the news of pos­si­ble price in­creas­es could prompt a rush to fill up.

“Since they spoke (in con­gress), I haven’t been able to get gas yet,” Al­ber­to Coru­jo, a 54-year-old dri­ver, said as he wait­ed in a long line at a gas sta­tion in Ha­vana.

Mer­cy Gar­cía, a sec­re­tary at a state-owned busi­ness, said times were in­deed tough.

“The sit­u­a­tion is very hard for peo­ple of all so­cial lev­els, be­cause wages don’t keep up and prices have gone through the roof,” said Gar­cía.

Vis­its by tourists are still on­ly at 64% of the lev­el in 2019, be­fore the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic. Sug­ar pro­duc­tion was down, and the gov­ern­ment had to im­port food. —HA­VANA (AP)

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Sto­ry by AN­DREA RO­DRÍGUEZ | As­so­ci­at­ed Press