Costly consumer goods flood into Cuba as restrictions are lifted

CUBANS snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time on Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother, Fidel, to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.

Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.

“Cuban people can’t survive on the salaries people are paying them. Average men and women have been screaming that at the top of their lungs for many years,” said Felix Masud-Piloto, director of the Centre for Latino Research at DePaul University. “Now, after many years, the government is listening.”

Many of the shoppers filling stores on Tuesday lamented the fact that the goods are unaffordable on the government salaries they earn, but that didn’t stop them from lining up to see electronic gadgets previously available only to foreigners and companies.

“They should have done this a long time ago,” one man said as he left a store with a red and silver electric motorbike that cost $814. The Chinese-made bikes can be charged with an electric cord and had been barred for general sale because officials feared a strain on the power grid.

On Monday, the Tourism Ministry announced that any Cuban with enough money can stay in luxury hotels and rent cars, doing away with restrictions that made ordinary people feel like second-class citizens. And last week, Cuba said citizens can get mobile phones legally in their own names, a luxury long reserved for the lucky few.

The land initiative, however, could potentially put more food on the table of all Cubans and bring in hard currency from exports of tobacco, coffee and other products, providing the cash influx needed to spur a new consumer economy.

Government television said 51% of arable land is underused or fallow, and officials are transferring some of it to individual farmers and associations representing small, private producers. According to official figures, cooperatives already control 35% of arable land and produce 60% of the agricultural output.

The change is a sharp contrast to the early days of Cuba’s revolution, when the government forced or encouraged private farmers to turn their land over to the State or form government-controlled collective farms. It was difficult to tell the significance of the programme which began last year, but was announced only this week.