Havana — It’s hard to find a spare tire in Cuba these days, or a cup of yoghurt.
 
Air conditioners are shut off in the dead heat. Factories close at peak hours, and workers go without their government-subsidized lunches.
 
Cuba has ordered austere energy savings this summer to cope with rising budget deficits and plummeting export profits, and the Communist Party Central Committee yesterday lowered 2009 economic growth projections by nearly a full percentage point. The committee also announced that it was suspending plans for the first Communist Party congress in 12 years in order to deal with the financial crisis.
 
A report in official Cuban newspapers cited President Raul Castro as saying the island is struggling through a "very serious" crisis and hinted that further belt-tightening is on the way. The government already has imposed conservation measures even as it continues to get free oil for services from Venezuela, fuelling rumours that Cuba is selling President Hugo Chavez’s crude on the side to raise cash.
 
More likely, the shortages result from a global recession that hit an already struggling economy still reeling from last year’s hurricanes. President Castro scolded Cubans in a recent national address to work harder because they have no one to blame but themselves.
 
"The only thing I know is that this is lousy," said one 27-year-old, who asked not to be identified because he sells cement and housing materials on the black market. "I don’t work. I find a way to survive."
 
Every bit of belt-tightening stings in a country where almost everyone works for the state and average wages are less than $20 (U.S.) a month.
 
The price of nickel, Cuba‘s chief export, is down more than 50 per cent from last year, according to Toronto-based Sherritt International Co-operation, Cuba‘s largest energy partner.
 
The company’s oil production on the island was down 19 per cent last quarter compared with the second quarter of 2008, mainly because Sherritt suspended drilling earlier this year when Cuba fell behind on its payments.
 
The government and Sherritt have worked out a plan to pay down the debt, and the company says Cuba has been sticking to it. The situation could have spurred the mandatory energy savings. Neither Sherritt nor the Cuban government would provide more details.
 
Beginning June 1, the government ordered energy conservation measures as part of a broader plan to cut the national budget by 6 per cent. Central planners also announced yesterday they were revising their economic growth projections downward, to 1.7 per cent from 2.5 per cent. The island’s economic woes began in earnest with three hurricanes last summer that caused more than $10-billion in damage and wiped out some of the food and grains the government had stockpiled to insulate itself from rising commodities prices.

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