Cuba suspends tariffs on food and medicine that travelers bring to the island

Travelers arriving in Cuba starting next Monday will be able to introduce food, hygiene products and medicines into the country without weight limits and without paying customs duties until December 31, Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero announced on Wednesday.

The measure has been adopted after Cuba experienced the largest protests in several decades last Sunday.

The protesters expressed their dissatisfaction with the Government for the shortage of basic products and medicines, for the electricity cuts and the management of the covid-19 pandemic.

The demands for the crisis were mixed with slogans that denounced the lack of freedoms on the island.

On video, the announcement of Manuel Marrero, Cuban Prime Minister ARIEL LEY ROYERO / VIDEO: EFE

During a meeting broadcast on Cuban television, in which the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and several ministers, including the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil, also participated, Prime Minister Marrero assured that this decision responds to “a demand made by many travelers ”, and that it was“ necessary ”to apply it.

The Cuban government has stated that it will evaluate a possible extension of the suspension of tariffs at the end of this year.

More information

• What is happening in Cuba?

  The keys to understanding the protests against the Government

• Spanish-Cuban relations: between 'realpolitik' and the throwing weapon

Travelers entering Cuba can now bring in up to 10 kilos of medicines without paying taxes.

However, even the limited amount of food and personal hygiene products that they are allowed to carry with them are subject to tariffs.

Due to travel restrictions due to the covid-19 pandemic, the number of people arriving in Cuba has drastically reduced in the last year, so the impact of the measure will be limited.

“No, we don't want crumbs.

We want freedom, ”the well-known Cuban blogger and dissident Yoani Sánchez reacted after the authorities' announcement.

"Blood was not spilled in the Cuban streets to be able to import a few extra suitcases," he added in a tweet.

Sánchez thus refers to the death of a protester on Tuesday and also to the arrest of more than a hundred people, in unusual protests on the Caribbean island.

No, we don't want crumbs.

We want freedom.

Blood was not spilled on Cuban streets in order to import a few extra suitcases.

Most of the injured or detained do not even have someone to bring them something in their luggage.

#SOSCuba # 11JCuba #CorredorHumanitario pic.twitter.com/yiZPsG629e

- Yoani Sánchez 🇨🇺 (@yoanisanchez) July 14, 2021

Meanwhile, Cuban authorities restored internet access on Wednesday night, according to the agency France Presse.

The suspension of access to the network had helped to cool the protests that broke out on Sunday, in which social networks were key.

Hundreds of Cubans began protesting Sunday in the towns of San Antonio de los Baños, near Havana, and Palma Soriano, in Santiago, a spark that later spread throughout the country.

In principle, it was a protest against the long blackouts of electricity and to demand vaccination against covid-19.

Soon after, the demands turned into cries for "freedom" and demands for political change.

The protest reached Facebook and was broadcast live, with proclamations as unusual as "down with the dictatorship" or "we are not afraid of communism."

At various points, such as Cárdenas, in the west of the island, state stores were looted and police cars were attacked.

The protests have been harshly repressed by the government, which called on the revolutionaries to fight the demonstrations in the streets. Cuban authorities confirmed Tuesday through the Cuban News Agency (ACN) that a protester, a 36-year-old man, had died in clashes with security forces in a Havana neighborhood. A Spanish photographer for the Associated Press (AP) agency, Ramón Espinosa, was attacked by law enforcement officers.

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a serious impact on the island's economy, particularly in one of the sectors that feeds many Cubans: tourism. The drop in foreign exchange that this represents has been aggravated by a poor sugarcane harvest, another source of income for the Cuban State. This decrease in resources has resulted in a reduction in the importation of basic necessities by the island's authorities, which has aggravated the shortage.