Cuba Faces Severe Currency Shortage, New Economic Analysis Reveals

The Cuban economist Pedro Monreal released a scathing analysis on Friday about the dire condition of Cuba's banking system, suggesting that it is "on life support." Meanwhile, the regime attributes the core issue to "limited progress in social communication."

Monreal's analysis, shared on his social media platforms, was a response to an article from the state-run newspaper Granma. It discussed a visit by the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Party to the Central Bank of Cuba (BCC) and three commercial banks—the Metropolitano, the Popular de Ahorro, and the Banco de Crédito y Comercio (BANDEC)—led by Miguel Díaz-Canel.

During this visit, according to the Communist Party’s media outlet, the president of the BCC, Juana Lilia Delgado Portal, offered a single explicit self-criticism regarding the sector: the lack of progress in institutional communication.

For Monreal, this assessment is critically inadequate given the real context: an official annual inflation rate of 28%, with independent estimates putting it closer to 70%, and a Cuban peso that has depreciated over 115% against the dollar in the informal market since December 2025.

In the first week of November, the dollar soared to 935 Cuban pesos in the informal market, compared to 793 CUP at the official BCC rate, while the euro reached 1,000 CUP.

"Does anyone believe that with skyrocketing prices and a national currency dragged through the mud, the economy and society can thrive?" the economist questioned.

Monreal points out that the meeting failed to set verifiable monetary policy goals—inflation, monetary base, exchange rate, liquidity—nor did it explain what tools would be used to restore the peso's value.

Additionally, the monetary or quasi-fiscal origins of the imbalances were not addressed, nor was there acknowledgment of the relative failure of the peso as a means of payment, unit of account, and store of value.

This omission is particularly striking in light of the package of 176 economic and social transformations approved in June 2026, which includes, for the first time since 1959, the authorization of private banks and currency exchange houses. However, according to Monreal, it lacks a specific macroeconomic stabilization axis.

By the end of October, the regime reported that 171 of the 176 measures had their legal bases completed, with 215 regulations approved to support them. Nonetheless, Díaz-Canel admitted that five measures remain unimplemented.

During the meeting with the banking sector, the Cuban leader attributed the challenges to the U.S. embargo, claiming that the country is experiencing "a difficult and complex period marked by the intensification of the United States government's unilateral coercive measures, leading to economic contraction and a shortage of foreign currency."

Throughout 2026, Monreal has systematically questioned the contradictions of the Cuban economic model, implicitly rejecting this framing by pointing out that the opacity of the Central Bank "stems from internal decisions."

"While the banking sector remains in critical condition due to the persistent deterioration of the peso and the lack of a credible monetary anchor, focusing the diagnosis on 'limited progress in social communication' reveals a disconnect between the severity of the crisis and the extent of self-criticism," the economist concluded.