The Cuban regime began rationing the sale of commodities because of the severe economic crisis

The Cuban diet began rationing the sale of chicken, eggs, rice, beans, soap and other commodities because of the seriousness economic crisis facing the country, informed the authorities.

Various forms of distribution will be applied to remedy the shortage, the Minister of Internal Trade said Friday, Betsy Díaz Velázquez, in an appearance on Cuban television. The official blamed the problem on hardening President Donald Trump's embargo, forced to seek food and supplies in more distant markets.

Economists consider that This is also due to a drop in Venezuela's aid while the scheme recognizes that the local industry is inadequate.

"We call for calm"said the minister. "It is a product that has the badurance of domestic production and a complement of imports."

Díaz explained that a rational distribution is sought and that the regulation of the quantities of goods that each person can buy makes it possible to deal with the accumulators or the retailers who arrive in the stores and acquire everything, leaving nothing to the majority of the population.

Retail food stores in Cuba are from the state and they sell products whose prices range from highly subsidized to extremely expensive by world standards.

The minister said soap, eggs, rice, beans, lentils and sausages would be sold in limited quantities, all cheap. Expensive goods do not seem to have been affected, except for chicken.

Cuba imports about $ 2 billion worth of food products and the shortage or intermittent shortage of products has been common for years.but in recent months, an increasing number of products have begun to disappear for days or even weeks. In stores you can see empty shelves or long queues. Sometimes the goods end when there are still people in the ranks, which causes complaints.

"The country is going through a difficult time … It's a correct measure, in favor of the people, because if the batteries do not come," Lazara García, an employee of a 56-year-old tobacco factory, told the AP that, thanks to this, she was able to get packages of sausages after leaving work.

In the store where he bought in the center of Havana, dependents received a circular on Friday limiting the offer of several products per personfor example, four packages of sausages per buyer, an equal number of bags of milk powder and five bags of peas.

Other citizens felt that the rationing measure was not enough.

"What the country needs is to produce, to produce it, to have merchandise, so it is that the tails are lowered", expressed Manuel Ordoñez, a 43-year-old entrepreneur.

In previous months, without being informed but in a practical way, the quantities of bottles of oil or soap that each buyer could buy were limitedbut Diaz's measures seem to generalize the mechanism to other fundamental mechanisms.

Since the 1960s, all Cubans have a "supply book" by family unit from which they are distributed almost free products who understand one liter of milk per child up to the age of seven, sugar, eggs, rice, salt or coffee, among others. However, in recent years, quantities or products have come out of this mechanism to join those sold "released" in state stores in one of two existing currencies on the island.

In the case of chicken, for example, Diaz stated that only five kilograms per person or two packs would be sold, but that complete boxes would no longer be offered.

The regulatory measure will have an impact on the owners of private companies open to the heat of the reforms of the former president Raul Castrowho must buy their supplies at these retail stores in the absence of a wholesale market.

Authorities said that in the past few months, besides import difficulties, such as poultry,e faces losses in the production of eggs or pork, food base on the island.