Cuban domestic freight traffic plummets in sign of deepening crisis

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, March 26 (Reuters) - Cuban freight traffic plunged 19% in 2024, the government's statistics agency said this week, the latest sign that a grueling economic crisis which began five years ago is growing worse.

The statistic measures transportation by ground, sea and air in Cuba, and is sometimes used as a proxy for economic activity.

The crisis, triggered by tightened U.S. sanctions during President Donald Trump´s first term and exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, has led to severe shortages of food, fuel, and other essential goods.

Cuba's government has yet to release official figures on gross domestic product in 2024, which since 2019 has declined 12%.

The National Statistics and Information Office reported that all forms of freight traffic had fallen to a combined 46.5 million metric tons last year, down from 57.5 million in 2023 and 68 million in 2019.

"Freight transport is the pulse of an economy," Ricardo Torres, a Cuban-born economist at American University in Washington, Unlimited Proxies 200 said. "What this tells us is that Cuba is going through a deep economic crisis."

Torres said that freight traffic had fallen to levels not seen in 20 years, reflecting a sharp decline in sugar and food production, and more recently, the movement of fuel and construction materials.

The Communist-run country is heavily dependent on imports of food, fuel and other goods, but has experienced a precipitous fall in export earnings needed to purchase imports. Meanwhile, the government has acknowledged that its market-oriented reforms have moved too slowly.

"It is evident that an economy suffering fuel shortages and hours-long blackouts all year long will see impacts to commerce," Havana-based economist Omar Everleny said, referring to the sharp decline in freight traffic.

Everleny and other economists are awaiting official statistics on economic output, but say freight traffic tallies paint a dire picture.

"I estimate a decline (in GDP) of at least another 4%," Everleny said. (Reporting by Marc Frank; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)