Special period in Cuba

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Semi-trailer truck (Camello) converted into a bus in Havana (2006)

The Cuban government describes an economic crisis that began in 1990 as a euphemism as a special period in peacetime ( Spanish : Período especial en tiempo de paz ) . The cause was the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dissolution of the Comecon , which had supported Cuba economically. In addition, the economic blockade imposed by the USA was tightened by the Torricelli Act (1992) and the Helms-Burton Act (1996). Due to a lack of foreign exchange , Cuba was initially only able to procure 10% of the oil consumption of the previous period on the oil market . As a result, machine farming collapsed and food shortages developed. The policy measures were:

  1. The ban on free trade based on the US dollar has been relaxed.
  2. Switching sugar production to more profitable products.
  3. Finding new ways to purchase oil below the market price.
  4. Development of new sources of foreign exchange, especially tourism .

There was a slight recovery in the economy towards the end of the decade, when Hugo Chavez's government began to supply oil on preferential terms from Venezuela in 2000 , currently valued at around $ 2 billion per year. Food is considered sufficient. However, the standard of living in 2009 was still below the level of 1990. However, prosperity has increased again since the beginning of the millennium. In 2014, Cuba was 67th out of 188 countries evaluated with a human development index of 0.769.

overview

Oil production and consumption in Cuba

The decline in the special period was immense. Contractual deliveries of oil from the Soviet Union ceased after 1991. The following year, Cuba imported only around 10% of the oil it had before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Cuban President Fidel Castro prepared the Cubans for the looming crisis in the energy supply in a televised address. This happened just under a week before the Cuban government received a statement from Russia that it had no intention of continuing to supply Cuba with the quota of cheaper oil guaranteed by the Soviet Union. The oil shortage quickly led to a sharp drop in productivity, both in agriculture, which was dominated by tractors and harvesting machines, e.g. B. combine harvesters, which all relied on oil, as well as in Cuban industrial production.

The first part of the special period was marked by a general collapse of industry, transport and agriculture. The real inflation- adjusted income of a Cuban fell to 10% between 1989 and 1993 and then began to rise only slowly. In 2011 it only reached 51% of the value in 1989. There was a lack of fertilizers and pesticides , both of which are heavily dependent on oil. There was also widespread food shortages while averting major levels of malnutrition or famine. Development workers from all over the world came to the country to help the Cubans to help themselves, for example by showing them how to work fields and flower beds. Organic agriculture quickly replaced the industrialized form that had been common in Cuba until then. See : Agriculture in Cuba

The Cuban government was also forced to enter into profitable economic and tourism contracts with Western European and South American firms so that more foreign currency could be raised to replace the loss of Soviet oil through international markets. The country was also faced with an almost complete collapse in supplies of steel and other ore products. Industries across the country were closed, destroying the country's industrial base and costing many jobs. Alternative means of local transport have been created. Best known are the so-called camellos ( camels ), large semi-trailers that have been converted into buses.

Meat and other everyday products, which were heavily dependent on outdated industrial and oil-dependent production, soon disappeared from the market and from the Cuban menu. Out of necessity, high-fiber and more vegetarian eating habits were adopted. Sugar was no longer so urgently needed as a source of foreign currency, since the oil-for-sugar program with the Soviet Union was over. Cuba diversified agricultural production by using former sugar cane fields for growing fruit and vegetables.

After the socialist president Hugo Chávez took over the affairs of state in Venezuela in 1999 , the Cuban government intensively focused on cooperation with this oil-rich country and its president, who admired Fidel Castro; “Cuba is the sea of ​​happiness. That is where Venezuela goes ”. Cuba was able to sell up to 40 percent of Venezuela's oil deliveries for foreign exchange on the international market.

See also

literature

Movies

  • The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (Documentary, USA, 2006)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Guest comment: Cuba's fear of the crash in Venezuela , DW, March 19, 2019
  2. ↑ Jörg Rückmann: Cuba's economy between blockade, hurricane and global economic crisis. In: Quetzal. Retrieved December 12, 2009 .
  3. ^ Cooperation Agreement Cuba-Venezuela , Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, October 30, 2015
  4. ^ Susanne Amann: Quo vadis, Cuba? In: ARTE TV. Archived from the original on June 6, 2014 ; Retrieved December 12, 2009 .
  5. ↑ a b Cuba's revolutionaries in a dead end. In: NZZ. August 30, 2007, accessed December 12, 2009 .
  6. ↑ United Nations Development Program (UNDP): Human Development Report 2015 . Ed .: German Society for the United Nations eV Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, Berlin ( undp.org [PDF; 9.3 MB ; accessed on November 1, 2016]). Page 247.
  7. ^ Carmelo Mesa-Lago , Jorge Pérez-López: Cuba Under Raúl Castro: Assessing the Reforms , Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2013. ISBN 978-1588269041 , p. 128
  8. ↑ Martin Franke: Strategic partnership between Cuba and Venezuela? , Verlag diplom.de, 2015, ISBN 978-3-95684-727-1 , p. 38
  9. ↑ IMDB: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil