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Time of India
6 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Cuba partially rolls back internet rate hike as anger grows
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA: Cuba said it would begin to offer additional mobile internet data plans at a sharply reduced price for students after an initial rate hike prompted outrage across an island already reeling from soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods. State-run telecommunications firm ETECSA last week capped subsidized data plans - offered at a steeply discounted rate of 360 pesos (just under $1 on the informal market exchange) - at 6 gigabytes, less than a third of the global average monthly usage per smartphone of 21.6 gigabytes, according to Swedish telecoms company Ericsson. After that, newly announced prices for an additional three gigabytes soar to 3,360 pesos ($9), over half the average monthly wage of 5,839 pesos ($16). Many plans are offered only in dollars - a currency out of reach for many Cubans - in a bid to tap the funds of relatives who have migrated abroad and wish to communicate with their families. The rate hike struck a nerve with many Cubans - for whom the new data packages are inaccessible - prompting ETECSA on Monday evening to offer students an additional 6 gigabytes, for a total of 12, at the same discounted rate of 360 pesos ($1), easing tensions - but leaving many still in the lurch. Andrea Curbelo, a 20-year-old art history student at the University of Havana said the additional discounted data package for students was appreciated but said all Cubans should be treated equal. "All Cubans should have the same opportunity as we students to communicate with their families ... they should restructure the measure so that everyone has the same rights." The continuing rift over the price of data plans in Cuba comes as the nation's communist-run government scrambles to raise funds amid the worst economic crisis to hit the island since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. The government says the rate hikes are necessary to update ailing telecommunications infrastructure in a country with some of the slowest internet connection speeds in the world, according to an online service that measures bandwidth. Danila Maria Hernandez, a 19-year-old Havana resident, said the government had struck a nerve raising prices amid the ongoing economic crisis. "All we have left to distract ourselves is social media, a little internet, to get our minds off our problems," she said. "It's just not right."
Yahoo
7 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Cuba partially rolls back internet rate hike as anger grows
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba said it would begin to offer additional mobile internet data plans at a sharply reduced price for students after an initial rate hike prompted outrage across an island already reeling from soaring inflation and shortages of basic goods. State-run telecommunications firm ETECSA last week capped subsidized data plans - offered at a steeply discounted rate of 360 pesos (just under $1 on the informal market exchange) - at 6 gigabytes, less than a third of the global average monthly usage per smartphone of 21.6 gigabytes, according to Swedish telecoms company Ericsson. After that, newly announced prices for an additional three gigabytes soar to 3,360 pesos ($9), over half the average monthly wage of 5,839 pesos ($16). Many plans are offered only in dollars - a currency out of reach for many Cubans - in a bid to tap the funds of relatives who have migrated abroad and wish to communicate with their families. The rate hike struck a nerve with many Cubans - for whom the new data packages are inaccessible - prompting ETECSA on Monday evening to offer students an additional 6 gigabytes, for a total of 12, at the same discounted rate of 360 pesos ($1), easing tensions - but leaving many still in the lurch. Andrea Curbelo, a 20-year-old art history student at the University of Havana said the additional discounted data package for students was appreciated but said all Cubans should be treated equal. "All Cubans should have the same opportunity as we students to communicate with their families ... they should restructure the measure so that everyone has the same rights." The continuing rift over the price of data plans in Cuba comes as the nation's communist-run government scrambles to raise funds amid the worst economic crisis to hit the island since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution. The government says the rate hikes are necessary to update ailing telecommunications infrastructure in a country with some of the slowest internet connection speeds in the world, according to an online service that measures bandwidth. Danila Maria Hernandez, a 19-year-old Havana resident, said the government had struck a nerve raising prices amid the ongoing economic crisis. "All we have left to distract ourselves is social media, a little internet, to get our minds off our problems," she said. "It's just not right."
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Blackouts - and temperatures - on rise in Cuban capital Havana
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) -Daily blackouts averaging four hours or more have become the new normal across Cuba's capital of Havana, an unsettling sign of a still-unresolved energy crisis as the sultry Caribbean summer sets in. Havana's misfortune follows a string of nationwide blackouts over several months, most recently in March, that plunged the country's frail grid into near-total disarray, stressed by fuel shortages, natural disaster and economic crisis. The major commercial hub on the island and a top tourist destination, Havana has long endured occasional blackouts but until this year had been largely shielded from the worst of the outages by the grid operator. "People are stressed," said Aramis Bueno, a 47-year-old resident of the densely populated Central Havana neighborhood of Dragones, as he sat on his doorstep during an evening blackout this week. "It's not easy living like this. Look at what time it is. We haven't been able to shower, to eat ... because of the blackouts." The worsening power outages in Havana come as the United States has severely tightened sanctions on Cuba, returning the island nation to a list of state sponsors of terrorism and ratcheting up restrictions on remittances, tourism and trade. Blackouts in the capital, unlike in much of the rest of the country, are largely scheduled, and far shorter than in the outlying and more rural provinces, where outages sometimes span 15 hours or more per day. But they are increasingly the talk of the town in Havana. "It's terrible, it's terrible. The electricity system in this country right now just isn't working," said Dayamí Cheri, 52, a resident of cramped Old Havana. "With this heat and no electricity, no one can survive." Recent outages led to school and workplace closures, reinforcing an already deep shortfall in economic output, which fell 1.9% in 2023. The economy did not expand in 2024, when more severe blackouts set in, though the government has not yet released last year's growth figures. There are glimmers of hope, however. Cuba is making progress this year on a China-backed plan to install more than 50 solar parks capable of churning out more than 1,000 megawatts of electricity. Eleven such solar parks have been installed since February, offering the promise of a better future, though most Habaneros say they're still hunkering down for a long summer. "I was born with blackouts," said Yasunay Perez, 46, of central Havana. "This is nothing new."
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cuba pins hopes on China to help save sputtering tourism industry
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba is pinning its hopes on attracting more visitors from Communist ally China as part of a last-ditch bid to revive a sputtering tourism industry devastated by renewed U.S. sanctions under the Trump administration and a crisis-wracked economy. Visitors from abroad, a critical source of foreign currency on the island, plunged by nearly a third in the first quarter of 2025, according to recent data from Cuba's statistics agency, ONEI, an ominous sign that has left top officials on the archipelago scrambling for alternatives. Cuba had forecast 2.6 million visitors in 2025, an 18% increase over the previous year, but seems unlikely to hit that target as the peak northern winter fades into a sultry Caribbean summer. "It's no secret that, recently, our country, and especially the tourism sector, is facing a complex scenario," said Cuban Tourism Minister Juan Carlos Garcia in a speech on Wednesday inaugurating the island's annual tourism fair - this year dedicated to China. Garcia praised China in his talk, saying their close ties of cooperation and friendship had "stood the test of time." The Asian giant could prove fertile ground for Cuba, despite the vast physical distance between the two countries. Air China last May opened its first direct flight between the two countries, which, while an intimidating 24-hour voyage, has helped boost visitor numbers. The Chinese are also exempt from obtaining a visa to visit the Caribbean island nation. Visitors from China in 2024 jumped 50%, bucking the downward trend. But Russia, Canada, Spain, and Italy - for which Cuba has been a popular destination until recently - saw visitor numbers drop in early 2025, according to ONEI statistics. U.S. visitors, including Cuban-Americans, also dropped off sharply in the first quarter. "It is unfair that U.S. citizens are prohibited, by law, from traveling freely as tourists to Cuba," said Cuba Prime Minister Manuel Marrero in a presentation to attendees at the fair. Cuba has long appealed to tourists attracted by the mystique of a Communist-run island which, at least to visitors, appears frozen in time thanks to a plethora of 1950s autos and towns mostly free of the kind of commercial development seen elsewhere in the Caribbean. Marrero said Cuba was seeking more diverse forms of tourism, to encourage foreign investment and partnerships and implement economic reforms to help revive the island's appeal.
Yahoo
26-02-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Cuba's top cigarmaker breaks record with sales of $827 million in 2024
By Nelson Acosta HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba's top cigar maker Habanos said on Monday that sales of the company's luxurious smokes had soared to a record $827 million in 2024 as revenue poured in from fast-growing markets in China and elsewhere in Asia. Habanos Vice President Jorge Perez said revenue jumped 16% over the previous year as the company reaped high-end demand from a growing class of wealthy smokers in Asia, a region which now accounts for nearly one-quarter of the company's sales globally. Cuba's cigar business, together with rum exports, is among the crisis-racked country's last thriving export industries and critically important for raising foreign currency necessary to buy food, fuel and medicine. Habanos S.A. is owned 50% by Cuba's communist-run government and 50% by a consortium of Asian investors under the umbrella group Tabacalera. Soaring sales in 2024 came even as Cuban growers struggle to recover from Hurricane Rafael in November and Hurricane Ian in 2022, both of which ravaged the western tobacco growing provinces of Artemisa and Pinar del Rio, damaging infrastructure and crops. Jose Maria Lopez, a Habanos vice president for development, told Reuters at the company's annual festival outside Havana that tobacco production was "guaranteed" for its cigar-making despite recent natural disasters. "The total tobacco production in Cuba may be reduced but those are poorer quality tobaccos that would never enter the production of our export cigars," Lopez said. "Only a small part of all national tobacco production is dedicated to cigars, and that amount, from the highest quality leaves, is guaranteed," he added. Cuba's luxuriously smooth tobacco has long topped the cigar industry, with aficionados touting the Caribbean island's unique variety of tobacco, rich soils, and ideal climate - as well as Habanos' insistence on rolling its cigars by hand. Executives told reporters that China once again topped sales in terms of value, followed by Spain, Switzerland, Britain and Germany. Sign in to access your portfolio
