Brian Pollitt: Sugar industry 19/02/09
The rise and fall of Cuba's sugar economy
University of Glasgow
6.30pm
Thursday 19 February 2009
More than 50 people came to hear Brian Pollitt describe how Cuba's economy had made a dramatic change in the space of less than two decades with the rapid decline of the traditional sugar industry and replacement by services.
He showed how in 1989, services comprised no more than 10 per cent of Cuba’s export revenues, with sugar accounting for over 70 per cent. In 2006, by contrast, it was sugar that made up 10 per cent of overseas earnings while services accounted for 70 per cent.
Brian explained the sugar industry's collapse and the extremely rapid expansion in the export of services.
By 2006 services eliminated Cuba’s balance of payments deficit in merchandise trade brought about by the collapse of its sugar earnings after the break up of the Soviet bloc. This was achieved through growing gross revenues from tourism but more importantly from the export of medical, educational and technical personnel to Venezuela which paid Cuba handsomely for their services in both hard currency and cheap oil.
In turn, it was the deployment of many thousands of Cuban medical and educational personnel that enabled President Chavez to fulfill his key social "missions" to provide free public health and education to Venezuela’s underprivileged majorities. Cuba’s unrivalled capacity to train appropriately equipped medical and educational personnel to serve in deprived communities overseas is explained, with Venezuelan finance permitting their wider deployment in Central and South America and the Caribbean.
Brian concluded by discussing Cuba’s current economic dependence on the continuance of Venezuela’s political and social policies together with the importance of offsetting this by improving the poor performance of Cuban agriculture.
The powerpoint of trade and agricultural statistics that Brian used in his lecture are available to download by clicking on the icon below:
Brian Pollitt read economics at Cambridge. He first visited Cuba in December 1962 when, as President of the Cambridge Union Society, he was a member of the British delegation to celebrate the 4th anniversary of the Revolution on 1 January 1963. Brian was engaged in fieldwork in Cuba from 1963-65 as a research student of Cambridge University, evaluating Cuba's agrarian reforms by conducting a survey of agricultural workers and peasant families. He then trained a Cuban research team and directed a survey of 1,061 rural households in 1965-67. Widely recognized as the UK’s foremost expert on Cuba’s sugar economy Brian was until 1996 Senior Lecturer in Latin American Studies at Glasgow University, where he is now Honorary Senior Research Fellow.
This event was recorded and a DVD is available. To obtain a copy please send a cheque for £5.00p made payable to 'London Metropolitan University' to the following address:
IISC
London Metropolitan University
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EC3N 2EY
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