Believe it or not

The Cuban economy apparently grew by 12.5 per cent in the first half of the year, according to a breathless report just out on Bloomberg, the international business news wire service.

Bloomberg quotes the Minister for Planning, Jose Luis Rodriguez, as saying that the economy is likely to attain a second straight year of growth exceeding 10 per cent due to “local investment” and income from exports of nickel and sugar cane.

“We are moving forward in our policies of favouring workers' income, keeping unemployment at low levels and investing in our future ability to generate electricity at lower costs,'' Rodriguez said, apparently with a straight face.

Then the minister hinted that at some stage in the future, the regime is hoping to merge the ordinary Cuban peso with the not-so-ordinary Cuban convertible peso.

The ordinary Cuban peso is the only type of currency most ordinary Cubans workers get to see. It is basically worthless. In fact, you need about 25 of these egalitarian ordinary pesos to buy just one convertible peso, the currency that is reserved in communist Cuba for capitalist tourists.