Cubans travel to Haiti searching for shopping bargains скачать в хорошем качестве

Cubans travel to Haiti searching for shopping bargains

(11 Dec 2018) Most people don't think of Haiti as a shopping destination. Unless they're Cuban. Every afternoon, hundreds of Cubans flocked to crossroads in the capital of the hemisphere's poorest nation, hunting clothes, light bulbs, perfume and other goods that are in short supply back home. Haitian vendors blast Cuban reggaeton music to draw in shoppers. The "Cuban market" in Port-au-Prince is part of a global trade, estimated to top 2 billion US dollars, fed by the confluence of Cubans' increased freedom to travel with the communist state's continued domination of the economy back home. Clothing, housewares, hardware, personal-care products and other goods at state-run stores in Cuba cost two or three times what they do elsewhere. And that's when they are on sale in an economy hampered by incessant shortage. What's more, Cuba's state monopoly on imports and exports excludes the small but vibrant private sector, which employs more than a half million people who often earn three or four times a state worker's salary. Since Cuba did away with a hated exit permit five years ago, Cubans are packing flights to destinations with easy entry requirements. In Port-au-Prince, Panama City, Cancun, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, even Moscow, Cubans are packing suitcases with goods for personal use and resale back home. That sort of business tourism has diversified a trade long centered on South Florida, where Cubans with family ties in the US relied on relatives to shuttle in personal or business goods. Driving the trade away from Miami has been the Trump administration's decision to pull most staff from its Havana embassy last year, ending visa processing there and forcing Cubans to travel to third countries to apply for permission to visit the U.S. The Miami-based Havana Consulting Group estimated in an August study that Cubans spent more than $2 billion in 2017 on bringing goods back to the island. That spending may equal anywhere from 2 percent to 5 percent of Cuba's gross domestic product, depending on which of the wildly varying estimates of GDP is used in absence of reliable economic statistics on the island's economy. Cuba maintains tight restrictions on the quantities that individuals can import, and working as a "mule" — bringing goods back for others — is technically prohibited, according to some official statements, but it is rarely prosecuted. Haiti, which is struggling with increasing violence and a devaluing currency, appears to be grabbing an increasing slice of the Cuban shopping pie. In the neighborhood surrounding the market, dozens of Cubans run bed-and-breakfasts for traveling shoppers in homes rented from Haitian owners. Dozens of Haitian "guides" help Cubans hunt down specialized goods like electronics and hardware. Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...