By Marc Frank and Nelson Acosta
HAVANA (Reuters) -Cash-strapped Cuba’s grueling crisis shows no signs of improvement, Cuban Economy Minister Joaquin Alonso said on Monday, announcing growth fell 1.1% last year on top of a 10% decline since 2019, official media reported.
Alonso was speaking to the Cuban parliament’s economic commission where he also indicated there was little hope for improvement this year, given toughening U.S. sanctions and a complicated international situation.
The import-dependent Caribbean island nation has seen foreign currency revenues fall by around 30% in recent years, causing shortages of food, fuel, medicine and inputs for agriculture and manufacturing.
A lack of fuel and equipment has crippled the energy grid, leading to daily blackouts in the Communist-run country of as much as 16 hours or more.
Agriculture, livestock farming, and mining have fallen 53.4% over the last five years, and manufacturing 23%, Alonso reported.
The minister was quoted as saying that this year and last had been marked “by the intensified impact of the blockade, the fierce persecution of financial flows, and barriers to international transactions that have hindered payments to suppliers.”
Alonso said hard currency earnings this year were 9% below the same period last year while imports were running 7% above last year’s rate.
“Cuba is importing more than it exports, which increases the debt,” he was quoted as stating.
The country last reported its foreign debt as $19.7 billion in 2020.
(Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Sandra Maler)
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