All the price tags in the Hery paint store have a figure crossed out with an X and another below it with a lower value.
Juan Carlos Baños, the sales representative of the well-known micro-SME located in the center of the city of Pinar del Río, explains that the change is due to the movements of the dollar in the so-called "informal market."
"As it has been falling, we have also lowered our prices, making our products a little more affordable for the population," he says.
However, he cannot guarantee that the prices currently shown to customers will remain the same over time, and that in a few days' time they will not have to be crossed out again to return to the previous prices, or even raised further.
The instability of the exchange rate in an informal market that has become the main source of supply for many economic actors who depend on the import of goods or raw materials makes any forecast impossible.
"One would like it to go down and remain stable. But neither of those things has been happening," says Juan Carlos. "There have been times, like now, when it goes down a little, but then it goes back to where it was and continues to rise."
The problem does not only affect micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) and self-employed workers. "Ultimately, it is something that cuts across the entire economy and has a greater impact on the population," says Jorge Luis Salas, administrator of the MSME D Álvares, based in Vueltabajo.
"For us, non-state actors, an exchange rate more in line with people's wages and purchasing power would be much more beneficial.
"A high rate requires higher investment costs and means that purchases take a long time to realize. In other words, the container you buy today may not be sold for another two months or more, and that means money is tied up and not being reproduced."
On the other hand, he explains that such sharp fluctuations in the value of currencies create a permanent risk.
"If you buy a container of goods today, with the dollar at, say, 340, and when you finish selling it, it has increased by 40 or 50 pesos, your profit margin is reduced and you may even lose money."
Lierly O'Connor Sequeira, representative of the MSME Reval, from Matanzas, which manufactures and markets construction materials, says that this has already happened to him.
"All this instability affects us. It is not easy to cope with this situation where you go to your suppliers and they tell you: today it is more expensive because the dollar has gone up."
WHEN THE WATERS ARE TROUBLED...
For Felipe Ponce, president of the Pinar del Río branch of the National Association of Economists and Accountants of Cuba (ANEC), the problem stems from the fact that the official exchange rate established years ago in the country (1 dollar = 120 pesos) has become increasingly detached from reality (1 dollar = more than 400 pesos at the time of writing), in a context of crisis, inflation, reduction in GDP, production, exports...
"Today, imports by non-state entities have a high impact on the Cuban economy, as they need foreign currency that can only be found on the informal market," Felipe points out, warning that "money is just another commodity and is also subject to the laws of supply and demand.
"If there is more demand for the euro or the dollar, the value of those currencies will increase. That is an inevitable truth, independent of any other factor."
However, the specialist acknowledges that the issue has also been influenced by speculation, due to the absence of a formal way to access foreign currency and a completely outdated official exchange rate.
In this regard, in recent weeks there have been recurring complaints about the exchange rate on the informal currency market shown by the digital platform El Toque, which, in the absence of other references, has been assumed to be valid throughout the country.
"They have taken advantage of this weakness we have and created tremendous instability," Felipe believes.
But how do Cubans perceive the impact of this on their daily lives?
"The first thing is that everything becomes more expensive and more difficult for those of us who live on a salary that has not changed," says Nieves Cabrera, a primary school teacher in the city of Pinar del Río.
"It's true that private businesses have become food suppliers given the state's inability to buy abroad, but my paycheck is barely enough for milk and a few other products I need, because prices are rising every day," agrees Isabel D'Rosa, a retiree from Holguín.
"I don't receive dollars, I don't buy or sell, but what happens to it affects everyone, because most basic necessities are in state-run currency stores or in small and medium-sized businesses, which depend on that currency to import," says Rosa Elena Cabezas.
DON'T ASK FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE...
Even though, at first glance, they would seem to be the least affected, given their room for maneuver (if the currency rises, I raise the price), non-state management models are not immune to the effects of such instability.
"It's crazy. These increases and decreases have a negative impact on our business because sales are lower, and by constantly changing the price of products, we lose credibility with our customers," says Jorge Luis Lamerén, owner of a café in the city of Matanzas.
With more than 30 years of experience as an economist, Jorge Luis Salas asserts that "these ups and downs in the exchange rate are very damaging to state and non-state actors, and to the population in the first place.
"The economy does not move with these jumps. If you look at the Consumer Price Index of the National Office of Statistics and Information (ONEI), you realize that, in fact, the growth in commodity prices has slowed down. Therefore, this rate is totally speculative."
For the specialist, "the fight should be for the real value of the dollar to be reflected in relation to the economic situation, which is tense, but no one can say for sure that it is 480 times higher than the Cuban peso. That is too much devaluation.
"What is the norm? I don't know. But we do know that the rate that most people have been using has been artificially inflated through media manipulation.
"Not recognizing this, saying that the Cuban economy is in bad shape anyway, would be unfair," agrees the president of ANEC in Pinar del Río.
However, identifying the problem will not be of much use if it is not accompanied by concrete actions to reverse the situation.
To expect something "good" from a platform that has publicly admitted that most of its funds come from a foreign government that for more than six decades has insisted on destroying the Cuban Revolution would be naive, to say the least.
To paraphrase an old saying, you can't ask for pears from an elm tree... or from El Toque.
But neither is it sensible to expect that the void that this media outlet knew how to fill will remain vacant if tomorrow there is no longer access to it from our country.
If it is not them, others will do so, until there is a real and reliable alternative, governed sovereignly by the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC).
The recent announcement in these same pages by the BCC that "the operational, technological, and regulatory conditions necessary to establish an official, orderly, transparent, and functional exchange market" are currently being created suggests that solutions may be on the way.
What is certain is that, more than 130 years later, José Martí's lesson in the newspaper Patria remains fully valid: in the face of our enemies' plan to "disperse us, divide us, drown us," we must "teach ourselves to our full height" in order to outwit them. "Plan against plan."
