HAVANA, June 4 (Reuters) - Cuba, which built its socialist revolution on sugar cane
production, plans to close almost half its sugar mills due to stagnant output and
low world prices, official and diplomatic sources said on Tuesday.

The Caribbean island will close 71 of its 156 state-run sugar mills in coming months
as the communist government plans to restructure the uncompetitive industry, the
sources said.

The mill closures were not expected to significantly affect Cuba's already depressed
aw sugar production, though they will affect tens of thousands of workers and their
families who have depended on the industry for generations.

"Everyone is very worried and sad, because this was our support for so many years,"
said Victoria Rodriguez, as she left the Pablo Noriega mill on bicycle for the last
time.

The sugar mill where she worked for 20 years, 28 miles (45 km) south of Havana, shut
down on Tuesday and the workers will be found jobs elsewhere or retrained, Rodriguez
said.

Authorities refused to comment on the closures, but official sources confirmed to
Reuters they would take place now that the current sugar harvest is winding down.

"The decision was made earlier this year to definitively close 71 mills so we can
put scarce resources into the most efficient mills and plantations," a mid-level
official said.

"Many of the mills were temporarily closed during the last three or four harvests.
Given low international sugar prices and our current financial problems it makes no
sense to reopen them," he added.

PRODUCTION TARGET NEVER MET

The Cuban economy has depended on sugar exports for more than a century. Rum
made from sugar is as much a part of the island's identity as its famous cigars.

After the 1959 revolution led by President Fidel Castro, masses of volunteers were
mobilized each year to work in the fields cutting cane before harvesting was
mechanized, and the government set a goal of reaching 10 million tonnes a year.

Output peaked in 1988-89 at 8.1 million tonnes, and has fallen off by more than half
to 3.6 million tonnes at present.

The collapse a decade ago of the Soviet Union, which bought Cuban sugar at preferential
rates and sold it subsidized oil, threw the island's economy into crisis, and the
sugar industry has never recovered.

The Castro government opened Cuba to foreign investment and tourism, which overtook
sugar in 1995 as the top source of hard currency.

World sugar prices have plummeted as developed nations turned to artificial or
alternative sources of sweeteners in the food industry, such as corn.

Just eight of Cuba's 156 mills were built after the 1959 revolution and some facilities
date as far back as the beginning of the last century.

The figures no longer add up: in 1990 Cuba produced 8 million tonnes of sugar that
earned $4.8 billion, at very good prices paid by Moscow. This year's harvest of 3.6
million tonnes will earn only $430 million.

EXPERTS RECOMMENDED CLOSURES

"It is a good economic decision and a risky social one," said a Western diplomat,
who added that Cuba had been urged for years by international experts to close its
mills.

The mill closures come as Cuba faces renewed difficulties in importing vital oil and
food supplies due to the world economic slowdown and the impact of the Sept. 11
attacks on international tourism.

The ruling Communist Party decided at its last congress in October 1997 to close
some mills, improve industry efficiency, and diversify production into byproducts
such as alcohol and animal feed.

The government had since balked at permanently closing mills because of the potential
political and social impact.

The sugar industry is Cuba's largest, with more than 400,000 workers. Two million of
the country's 11 million residents depend on it, most living in the countryside.

"People are depressed around here. We know the mills should close, but many of us
started out cutting cane or working in them and it hurts," said a Sugar Ministry
employee involved plans to reduce the social impact of the closures.

She confirmed 71 mills would no longer produce raw sugar and most would be sold as
scrap, though it was not clear if all the mills would close this year. The Sugar
Ministry will find new jobs for laid-off workers, retrain younger employees and pay
60 percent to 100 percent of salaries until new work was found.

At the Pablo Noriega mill, many of the 299 workers were inconsolable.

"We struggled hard to save the mill, but it has come to this extreme," said Dario
Pineiro, who spent 14 of his 48 years milling sugar.

By Marc Frank and Anthony Boadle
(Additional reporting by Nelson Acosta)
06/04/02 17:46 ET

aus: http://www.globetechnology.com/servlet/GAMArticleHTMLTemplate?tf=globetechnology/TGAM/NewsFullStory.html&cf=globetechnology/tech-config-neutral&slug=WJFEAT&date=20020606

Cuba's economy is suffering

JOSE DE CORDOBA

Thursday, June 6, 2002

Cuba appears headed for a long, hot summer of electrical blackouts, gasoline shortages and economic hardship as its tattered economy reels from a sharp fall in tourism, a cut-off of cheap oil from Venezuela and slumping sugar prices.

Meanwhile, Havana is preparing to close about half its 156 sugar mills within months and restructure the industry, which has been the backbone of the island's development for most of its history. The island's state-run media hasn't reported the plan, which would close 71 mills, but government officials and sugar-mill employees confirm it, according to Reuters News Service. Cuban government officials weren't available for comment.

"Cuba is heading into another economic crisis," says Damian Fernandez, a Cuba expert at Florida International University. "Tourism, oil, sugar -- everything points downwards."

This week, in a bid to raise hard cash for vital imports, Cuba increased the price of most goods, including gasoline, cigarettes and electronic products, available in the country's so-called dollar stores -- those where the U.S. dollar is the only currency accepted.

Staples such as rice and beans are rationed by the government. If the economic situation becomes critical, Mr. Fernandez believes Cuban leader Fidel Castro may reluctantly embark on another round of limited economic reforms. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Mr. Castro in 1993 permitted the greenback to circulate on the island, and allowed Cubans to open some small businesses, such as restaurants.

The closing of the mills comes on the heels of yet another disappointing sugar harvest of 3.6 million tons, only about 80,000 tons more than last year. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba's sugar industry, whose production peaked at 8.1 million tons in 1989, has been plagued by shortages of spare parts, fuel and fertilizer.

The Soviet collapse ended the island's profitable barter trade, whereby it exchanged most of its sugar for Soviet-bloc products and oil valued at as much as $4.8-billion (U.S.) a year. At today's sugar prices, about 5 cents a pound, Cuba will make about $430-million from this year's crop.

The planned closing of the mills -- most built more than half a century ago -- shouldn't affect world prices or Cuba's own dwindling sugar production, analysts say. Experts have long urged Cuba to close inefficient mills, but Havana had been hesitant to take the axe to the country's largest employer, one with more than 400,000 workers.

And Cuba's tourism industry, which has been the prime mover of the island's economy since 1995, has been in the doldrums since the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The tourism ministry recently reported that first quarter arrivals fell 14 per cent on the year earlier. Seeking to attract more European tourists, Cuba announced last week it would also allow the euro to circulate in the country.

Cuba is also reeling from its loss of cheap Venezuelan oil. Before April's failed coup against Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela was supplying Cuba with more than 50,000 barrels a day. Part of the oil was financed over 15 years at a 2 per cent interest rate. The deal with Cuba was a major irritant to Mr. Chavez's political foes.

Most assumed the oil shipments would resume after Mr. Chavez regained power. But Mr. Chavez, significantly weakened since the coup, now appears to have realized that his generosity with Cuba has its limits.

That has cost Cuba dearly. Havana has confirmed it has received no Venezuelan oil since the day of the attempted coup.

Autor und dessen Position sind mir unbekannt.
Kann ihn jemand ggf. einordnen ?

Saludos, Karsten

aus:
http://www.cubanet.org/CNews/y02/jun02/11e4.htm bzw.
http://www.puenteinfocubamiami.org/guantanamo.html

Angry sugar mill workers go on strike in protesting demolition

The Information Bridge Cuba

(GUANTÁNAMO/CUBA/June7/Puenteinfocubamiami.org)
– Workers of the sugar mill known as "Costa Rica", in the municipality
of El Salvador, Province of Guantánamo, stopped production after finding
out that this huge sugar mill will be demolished, and went home in protest
for the imminent loss of work.

Quick Response Brigades of the Interior Ministry went to the sugar mill to
try to disperse the tumultuous protest. The Department of State Security is
looking for the leader of this brave act, uncommon since the triumph of the
dictatorship of Fidel Castro, who abolished workers' strikes and labeled
them them counter-revolutionary.

The workers stated that they acted under mutual agreement, so that they
would all be responsible.

According to the source, the militant communist Remigio Limonta, a resident
of this town, was speaking of this incident in the cafeteria and said he had
never seen the sugar mill workers so angry.

From Guantánamo, Ferdinando Castro de Lardiller, National Delegate of the
Democratic Party November 30 "Frank País" and COOCE Coordinator.
Given to The Information Bridge Cuba Miami on June 6th, 2002.

Interpretation aus kubanischer Sicht und weitere Wirtschaftszahlen:

In Antwort auf:

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INTERVIEW-Cuban think-tank says economy down but not out

June 17, 2002 10:33 AM ET

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, June 17 (Reuters) - Communist Cuba faces its worst financial crisis since the collapse of the Soviet Union crippled the economy a decade ago, but the country is better prepared to absorb the shock, a local economic think-tank said on Monday.

"The situation is the most difficult since the beginning of the 1990s, but anyone who thinks it is remotely similar knows nothing about the transformation of our economy over the last 12 years," Juan Triana, director of the University of Havana's Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, told Reuters.

Hard currency income has fallen by hundreds of millions of dollars a year due to low prices for key exports such as sugar and nickel, falling tourism revenues since the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, the closure of a Russian spy station for which Cuba received $200 million a year, and other causes, he said.

Signs Latin America's sole socialist economy is in trouble have prompted speculation inside and outside Cuba that a new crisis, similar to that of the early 1990s, is at hand.

President Fidel Castro's government has defaulted on many short-term debt and supplier payments since November, western diplomats said.

The Cuban peso currency is trading at 27 to the U.S. dollar, compared with 21 pesos last October.

Sugar mills are closing across the Caribbean island.

ECONOMY RESTRUCTURED

The government has slashed fuel and power allocations for the state-run economy twice since December, and prices for many goods and services are up.

Cubans are still traumatized by the crisis of the early 1990s when transportation ground to a halt, power outages averaged 16 hours a day, the peso plunged from 7 to 150 to the dollar and there were food shortages, but Triana dismissed fears that it could happen again.

"Trade declined 70 percent, the gross domestic product 35 percent and industrial production nearly 80 percent between 1989 and 1994. Nothing like that is happening now," he said.

"Since 1993 we have recovered most of the lost ground, and more importantly the structure of the economy has substantially changed," he said.

More than 90 percent of Cuba's foreign exchange in 1990 came from sugar sales to the Soviet Union, which provided the island with generously priced oil supplies in return.

"Today more than 50 percent of our foreign exchange revenues (estimated at approximately $4 billion in 2001) come from services, mainly tourism, and sugar is no longer our only export," Triana said.

Nickel now garners similar revenues and nontraditional products such as citrus and pharmaceuticals account for 20 percent of export earnings, he said. Cuba is also less dependent on fuel and food imports than in the past.

CRISIS WILL LINGER

"In 1990 we imported 100 percent of our fuel, while this year we will generate up to 90 percent of our electricity using Cuban oil and gas," Triana said.

The government is converting huge amounts of land from sugar cane cultivation to food production, he added, which could in the medium term reduce the Caribbean island's dependence on imported food.

Triana said any country would need time to recover from the financial blow Cuba took over the last year, a task made more difficult by the U.S. trade sanctions Washington has imposed on the island for four decades.

"Another government might go to the World Bank or International Monetary Fund for a long-term loan to see it through. Because of the U.S. blockade we can't, so recovery is more complicated," he said.

Referring to speculation a recent government decision to permanently close 71 of 156 sugar mills signaled a full blown crisis, Triana said the opposite was true.

"You can't apply an orthodox-capitalist microscope to a completely unorthodox specimen," he said.

"In a capitalist economy mills are privately owned and closing them means a loss of capital, output and jobs. Here the mills are owned by the state and closing some of them means moving resources to more efficient mills," he said.

"There is no loss of capital or output and the impact on the economy is positive, though the loss of thousands of jobs in small sugar towns could represent a crisis at the local level," he said.

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Aus: http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=search&StoryID=1098705