> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Cuba's First Wholesale Market Asks US$200 at the Door. The Regulation That Created It Sets No Minimum at All. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cuba-mercado-abasto-minimum-purchase-resolution-13-2026/ - Published: 2026-10-13T22:23:23.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-01T05:20:26.000Z - Description: Cuba opened its first Mercado de Abasto.cu in Sancti Spiritus on 10 October, with a minimum purchase of US$200 or 24,000 Cuban pesos. Resolution 13/2026, the instrument that created these markets, contains no figure. It delegates the minimum to the company running the market. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Economy, Cuba, Caribbean, Trade, Analysis **Quick summary:** Cuba opened its first Mercado de Abasto.cu in Sancti Spíritus on 10 October, with a minimum purchase of US$200 or 24,000 Cuban pesos. Resolution 13/2026, the instrument that created these markets, contains no figure. It delegates the minimum to the company running the market, which has already moved it once. By LCN Business Desk The first Mercado de Abasto.cu opened on Saturday 10 October at the Comercializadora ITH premises in the city of Sancti Spíritus, [the provincial newspaper Escambray reported](https://www.escambray.cu/2026/inauguran-en-sancti-spiritus-el-primer-mercado-de-abasto-cu-de-cuba/?ref=lacaribenanews.com). To buy there, a customer registers a client record and spends at least US$200, or 24,000 Cuban pesos. That threshold is not in the law. [Resolution 13/2026](https://www.cibercuba.com/s/gacetaoficial/pdf/goc-2026-ex84.pdf?ref=lacaribenanews.com) of the Ministry of Internal Commerce, which created these markets and which the provincial authorities cite as the market's legal basis, names no sum in any currency. ## What does the resolution actually say? That the seller decides. The instrument runs to two pages in the Gaceta Oficial de la República de Cuba, Extraordinaria No. 84 of 4 August 2026\. It was signed by Minister Betsy Díaz Velázquez in Havana on 20 July and took effect on publication. Article 7 lists the principles on which the markets operate, and the second of them reads: "realizar las ventas al por mayor, definiéndose por el comercializador lotes o cantidades mínimas para las personas naturales" Wholesale sales are to be made, with the minimum lots or quantities for natural persons defined by the marketer. The figure is delegated, not set. The rest of Article 7 requires the markets to prioritise inputs, raw materials, food and high-demand products, to encourage membership schemes with price discounts, to operate in Cuban pesos and in foreign currency, to issue invoices, to guarantee electronic payment channels, and to use electronic commerce, "que incluye pago desde el exterior": including payment from abroad. Article 2 opens participation to state enterprises, non-state forms of management, national and local producers, importers, marketers and foreign investment arrangements. ## How do we know the figure can move? Because it already has. In September, the ITH director in the territory told Radio Sancti Spíritus that the minimum purchase at these markets would be US$300 or the equivalent in pesos. At the opening five weeks later the figure announced was US$200 or 24,000 pesos, a third lower. Nothing had to be amended for that to happen, because nothing in the resolution fixed the first number. ## What does 24,000 pesos represent in Cuba? About three and a half months of the average wage. Cuba's Oficina Nacional de Estadística e Información reported the average monthly salary across the budgeted and enterprise sectors at 6,930 pesos for 2025, up from 5,839 pesos in 2024\. Against that, the 24,000-peso minimum is 3.5 times a month's average pay, before anything is bought. | Threshold at the Mercado de Abasto.cu | Amount | | -------------------------------------------- | ---------- | | Minimum purchase, pesos | 24,000 CUP | | Minimum purchase, dollars | US$200 | | Average monthly salary, 2025 | 6,930 CUP | | Minimum as a multiple of average monthly pay | **3.5x** | Source: minimum purchase from Escambray, quoting the director of UEB ITH Sancti Spíritus, 10 October 2026\. Salary from ONEI, "Salario medio en cifras. Cuba 2025". The multiple is LCN's arithmetic. The entry ticket to Cuba's first wholesale market is three and a half months of the average wage. ## Are the two prices the same price? Only at a rate most Cubans cannot get. Divide the peso threshold by the dollar threshold and the implied exchange rate is exactly 120 pesos to the dollar. That is a rate used in certain accounting operations between state entities. It is not the rate at which the public buys dollars. On 13 October the informal market was trading the dollar at about 785 pesos, on the index tracked by the Cuban outlet elTOQUE, which calculates it from buying and selling announcements and states that it is an estimate rather than an official rate and that actual transactions may occur at other prices. | Measured at about 785 CUP to the dollar | Amount | | --------------------------------------- | ----------------- | | The peso door | 24,000 CUP | | The dollar door, US$200, in pesos | about 157,000 CUP | | The peso door, 24,000 CUP, in dollars | about US$31 | Source: LCN's arithmetic on the two published thresholds and the elTOQUE informal index for 13 October 2026. The two doors are priced as equals and are not. A buyer paying in pesos needs 24,000 of them. A buyer paying in dollars needs a sum that, bought on the street, costs roughly six and a half times as much. Which door a customer uses is not always a free choice. The market prices goods individually, with transactions in pesos or dollars according to each product, and the foreign supplier sells in euros. ## Who is actually supplying it? A state agro-industrial firm, three small private businesses and a foreign company. The main supplier is the Empresa Municipal Agroindustrial de Sancti Spíritus. Alongside it are three mipymes, among them Banvaria SURL and Valdespino, and a foreign firm that trades in euros. The market is managed by the Comercializadora Mayorista ITH Trinidad and sells food, meat, hygiene articles, drinks and imported goods. The director of the ITH base unit, Aida Rita Rivas Duarte, said the arrangement is meant to organise the wholesale system from the territories and give natural and legal persons direct access to goods. She also said negotiations with suppliers had been complex, particularly on agreeing wholesale prices that would let buyers resell at their own margins. ## Why is it in a tourism company's warehouse? Because the tourism had gone. The ITH installation had been close to shut as tourist activity contracted. The market was announced at the close of the first Business Forum of the tourism sector, which met on 7 and 8 October in Trinidad and finished in Sancti Spíritus on the Saturday of the opening. The Ministry of Tourism delegate in the province, Yordanis Fernández Alonso, tied the forum to the 176 economic and social transformations approved in June, whose nineteenth axis covers the reorganisation of wholesale commerce. Cuba's visitor collapse was reported in [Cuba Lost Two Thirds of Its Visitors and Three Hotel Chains](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cuba-tourism-collapse-us-sanctions-sotic-georgetown-2026/), and the wider economic position in [Havana's Diplomat Calls Cuba's Model 'Exhausted'](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/cuba-economic-model-exhausted-cossio-caricom-celac-aid-2026/). The arrival of Dominican competition for the same visitors is in [The Dominican Republic Took More Visitors in September Than Cuba Took in Seven Months](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/dominican-republic-9-2-million-visitors-september-cuba-sotic-2026/). A second market is planned for Trinidad. No date has been confirmed. ### What the title card shows Every data point on the article's title card, in text. - **US$200 or 24,000 CUP.** The minimum purchase announced at the opening on 10 October 2026, quoted by Escambray from Aida Rita Rivas Duarte, director of the UEB ITH Sancti Spíritus. - **Zero.** The number of figures appearing in Resolution 13/2026 of the Ministry of Internal Commerce, Gaceta Oficial Extraordinaria No. 84 of 4 August 2026\. Article 7(b) delegates minimum lots and quantities to the marketer. - **US$300.** The minimum announced in September by the same ITH director to Radio Sancti Spíritus, before it was revised down for the opening. - **6,930 pesos.** Cuba's average monthly salary for 2025 across the budgeted and enterprise sectors, per ONEI, against 5,839 pesos in 2024. - **3.5 times.** The 24,000-peso minimum as a multiple of that average monthly salary. LCN's arithmetic. - **120 pesos to the dollar.** The exchange rate implied by setting the two thresholds at US$200 and 24,000 CUP. Not the rate at which the public buys dollars. - **About 785 pesos.** The informal market dollar on 13 October 2026, on the index tracked by elTOQUE, which states it is an estimate from buying and selling announcements rather than an official rate. - **4 suppliers named.** The Empresa Municipal Agroindustrial de Sancti Spíritus, the mipymes Banvaria SURL and Valdespino, and a foreign firm trading in euros. ## Frequently Asked Questions What is the Mercado de Abasto.cu? A wholesale market model created by Resolution 13/2026 of Cuba's Ministry of Internal Commerce, published in the Gaceta Oficial on 4 August 2026\. It allows state enterprises, mipymes, cooperatives, self-employed workers, producers, importers and natural persons to buy wholesale without a prior commercial contract. The first one opened in Sancti Spíritus on 10 October 2026. Is the US$200 minimum purchase set by law? No. The resolution contains no figure in any currency. Article 7(b) provides that minimum lots or quantities for natural persons are defined by the marketer. The threshold announced at the opening is the operator's decision, and it was lowered from the US$300 announced in September. How much is 24,000 Cuban pesos in local terms? About three and a half months of the average monthly salary, which ONEI put at 6,930 pesos for 2025. Are the peso and dollar minimums equivalent? They are set at an implied rate of exactly 120 pesos to the dollar, which is not the rate at which the public buys dollars. On the informal index tracked by elTOQUE, the dollar stood at about 785 pesos on 13 October 2026, at which US$200 would cost roughly 157,000 pesos. Does the regulation allow payment from outside Cuba? Yes. Article 7(g) requires the markets to use electronic commerce including payment from abroad, and Article 7(d) requires them to operate in Cuban pesos and in foreign currency.