The Cuban government is implementing a price reduction of up to 20 percent on 24 basic goods sold at foreign-currency stores, including food products like ground meat, chicken and canned milk, as well as soap and toothpaste.

According to documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald, last Wednesday trade officials began implementing ``centralized discounts'' from five to 27 cents per CCP (Convertible Cuban Peso) on most items. The markdown could be as high as 2.85 CCP on some products and brands.

One CCP equals $1.24 in the official currency exchange, representing a savings of between six and 33 cents per dollar, which in some exceptional cases could go as high as $3.50.

Besides hamburgers, sausages and hot dogs, the goods to be marked down are yogurt, detergents and disposable diapers for babies and adults.

The Ministry of Finance made the decision official on July 20.

``So far I've seen very few discounts at the stores,'' economist and independent journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe said from Havana. ``Though many products have been missing from the shelves for too long now, there has been a visible shortage in the last few days and people are skeptical.''

While the measure has been official since last week, its implementation has been gradual in state markets in Havana and in other cities.

The price cuts come one year after Raúl Castro's government announced in May 2008 an increase in food prices at the foreign-currency stores, blaming the global financial crisis impact on Cuban imports.

In his recent speech before the Cuban parliament, Castro announced that the country had been forced to reduce its imports by 20 percent as a result of the increase in food prices and raw materials caused by the global economic crisis.

Since early this year, Cuba has substantially reduced its purchase of agricultural products from the United States, the main supplier of foods to the island.

Experts consider that the new measure is inevitably linked to the scaling down of money remittances from Cubans abroad and the need of the government to increase the circulation of foreign-currency in the internal market.

``There is a certain logic in raising people's purchasing power to encourage family remittances from abroad,'' said economist Jorge Sanguinetty, president of DevTech Systems, based in Miami. ``Both the person making the remittance and the one receiving it feel that they can get more for their money.''

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