They set by decree the price of rice and beans in Cuba and warn that this is «playing with fire»

The prices of rice and beans, two essential components in the traditional diet of Cubans, have just been set by the Council of Ministers of Cuba, a fact that could further aggravate citizen disagreement due to the food crisis.

The measure, published as a decree in the Official Gazette, signed by the holders of agriculture and finance and prices, will enter into force next Monday, as a tool to «contain inflation in the country.»

The maximum prices of the state -owned state company and the rice retailer and the common national production beans will be 155 and 285 pesos respectively, authorities said.

The vice minister of finance and prices of Cuba, Yenisley Ortiz, said that the control of retail prices of imported basic products, decreed six months ago «helped contain inflation.»

However, Cuban economist Pedro Monreal warned on his social networks about the danger of putting such a decree in force, because the price stop «functions as a tuition of pipes of the economic system.»

Creating the illusion of «containing» inflation «what it does is transfer inflation to the black market and cause» repressed «inflation in rationed markets.»

In turn, he points out that the maximum collection prices «limit the agricultural producer their possibilities to obtain income that would be dedicated to investing, reduces incentives and increases the irrigation to invest, and to do it efficiently.»

Many peasants argue that the collection company is actually an obstacle to agricultural development.

Monreal said that «neither propaganda nor voluntarism produces rice, beans, nor anything that resolves a level of food insecurity on which the Cuban government does not seem willing to be self -criticly reflecting.»

«At this point, Cuban government officials should have been clear to issue a legal norm by ramping crucial food prices of the national agriculture, such as rice and beans, rather than a» freezing «could be playing with fire,» he warned.

This week the Cuban government announced that it would be contemplating to convert into law the granting of land to usufruct to companies and foreign persons with permanent residence on the island.