Way to Buy Scarce Items : Gold, Silver Are New Coins of the Realm for Consumers in Cuba

In Cuba, probably the quickest way to acquire a color television set these days is with gold.

With a seemingly insatiable appetite for scarce consumer goods, Cubans are eagerly taking advantage of a plan that allows sellers of gold and silver objects--coins, medals, rings and silverware--to obtain bonds for merchandise.

With the bonds, Cubans can get appliances, stereo equipment, clothes, even cars. And, to consumers’ glee, some of the items are not Soviet produced but made in Japan.

More than $4.12 million in gold and silver changed hands over the last two months in the government-backed program, according to Cimex, the Panamanian-Cuban commercial firm that designed the plan.

“We tried to facilitate access to basic goods. There was an obvious need to satisfy; it was just a question of designing new channels,” Enrique Martinez Noa, Cimex managing director, told foreign journalists.

A team of 50 experts serves 400 people a day, buying 18-karat gold for $3.90 a gram and 22-karat gold for $5. Silver is 10 cents a gram.

Gold is accepted at about 40% of its value on world markets, Martinez Noa said.

That would seem to leave Cimex with a healthy profit margin--Martinez Noa said the target was 16% to 18%--but much of it was eaten up by what he called “huge taxes” levied by the state. He gave no figures.

He said that more than 9,500 people so far had come to sell their possessions to Cimex offices in a refurbished house in the elegant, tree-lined Miramar district.

As of Dec. 29, 18,569 others were on the official waiting list and would probably have to wait a whole year.

Some Havana residents said a second, unofficial list existed, which required that sellers stand in line at given hours every day.

“I personally queued during 20 nights. But it was worth it. I sold mostly silver stuff, trays, medals, rings, but also two gold coins, nothing that carried a sentimental value,” said Cristina Canji, 42, a Food Industry Ministry employee.

“I received the equivalent of $659 in bonds. With that, I bought a washing machine, a hair dryer, a color TV, small portable radios, clothes, shoes--things that I really needed.”

Teresa Sanchez, a 61-year-old retiree, was in line with what she needed to buy a washing machine: silverware, a silver ashtray, a sugar bowl.

“I just wanted a new, and reliable, washing machine. I could have sold a lot more, but why?”

Washing machines on the national market are all Soviet made. People here say they are ill-adapted to the tropical, humid Cuban climate. They cost about 240 pesos--about $315 at the official exchange rate.

Cimex’s Japanese-made washing machines are easy to operate and reliable, they say.

They go for $210, or 210 pesos, since in this business the exchange rate applied is 1 for 1.

Other than color television sets--only black and white sets, also Soviet made, are available on the regular market--Cimex bonds can be swapped for cars.

Thirty three have been sold so far--new, Soviet-made Moskvitches or secondhand, Polish and Soviet-made Fiats.

Only $2.64 million of goods were bought in bonds at the two Cimex shops, leaving about $1.5 million in still unused bonds.

“People probably wait for goods that we haven’t brought in yet. But nobody has asked for a Mercedes,” Martinez Noa said, adding that the program would be extended soon to four provincial cities.

As to where all this gold and silver went, central bank officials declined comment, but some reports said the government would use it to repay part of Cuba’s foreign debt of more than $5 billion.