CUBA: Travellers Upset over New Customs Rule on Excess Luggage

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 24 2002 (IPS) - Cubans in and outside the country are upset over a new surcharge on excess luggage, which foreign tourists, however, will be exempt from paying.

According to the new rule, to go into effect in November, any Cubans entering the country, as well as foreigners who live here on a temporary or permanent basis, will have the right to bring in 20 kgs of luggage free of charge, and only 10 kgs of excess luggage, for which they will have to pay 25 dollars a kg.

New scales are being installed in the Havana airport and at other points of entry, where passengers will weigh their luggage – including carry-on bags – and be given a receipt showing the customs duty they have to pay.

”This is to get people to bring back money and buy goods here, instead of bringing things into the country,” said José Manuel Mena Ortega, a 60-year-old craftsman who periodically travels to the United States to visit his grown children.

Local economists say the measure is part of the cash-starved Cuban state’s efforts to boost hard currency revenues.

They point to the difficulties caused by a drop in remittances sent home by Cubans living abroad and the slump in tourism revenues since the Sep 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington, as well as the low market price of sugar and the Cuban state’s need for hard currency to import oil.

Tourism, sugar and emigrant remittances are Cuba’s three main sources of foreign exchange.

Since the mid-1990s, there are certain products that Cubans can only find in the government chain of stores – Tiendas Recaudadoras de Divisa (TRD) or ”Hard Currency Collection Stores” – that sell only in dollars.

Those who have family abroad are heavily dependent not only on the cash remittances sent home by their loved ones, but also the new or hand-me-down clothing, medicines and other essential items that they bring to Cuba on their visits.

An estimated 120,000 to 150,000 Cubans living in the United States visit Cuba every year. The number of people making the trip the other way around, with temporary visas, is much lower.

Four U.S. airlines operate 20 to 25 flights a week between Cuba and the United States, of which Continental Airlines covers 70 percent.

Mena Ortega said that up to now, customs officers have merely estimated the value of what travellers are bringing in, and reach an agreement on the duties to be paid.

But under the new rule, Cubans will be able to bring just 20 kgs of personal effects and 10 kgs of medicine, free of charge. They will also be entitled to import up to eight kgs of ”miscellaneous” merchandise, including clothing, footwear, and articles of personal hygiene, as well as two kgs of gifts – but at an additional cost of 25 dollars per kg.

Anything above that limit will be subject to confiscation.

Furthermore, the 10 kgs of excess luggage can only be brought in once a year. On any additional trips, the traveller will be allowed to bring in just 20 kgs of personal effects.

Although the new regulation applies to Cubans entering the country from anywhere in the world, Mena Ortega said it mainly targets people coming in from the United States, which is home to over one million Cuban emigrés and their descendants.

The customs duty stands apart from what the airlines charge for overweight luggage.

”I don’t understand why they’re charging me an excess baggage fee that I already paid when I boarded the plane,” said Mena Ortega. ”Besides, this measure that has been announced for next month has already gone into effect, because my wife recently came back from a visit to (the United States), and they weighed her bags and charged her 200 dollars.”

A source at the Havana international airport explained that the airlines charged their own fees for overweight luggage, while the customs service would now begin weighing baggage itself, separately, to help determine the customs duties to be charged.

In a statement that has been picked up abroad but virtually ignored by the state-monopolised Cuban press, the customs service said the new regulation ”offers uniformity for all passengers, with total transparency in terms of appraisal of the value of goods that are imported.

”This new method will be useful for passengers who basically make family visits,” according to the customs service.

María Diosdado, a retired accountant who in the past five years has visited her family members in the United States twice, complained that it was ”unfair” to charge so much money for each extra kg of merchandise brought into the country.

”My siblings and nieces and nephews give me a lot of presents, which I won’t be able to bring back on my next trip. It embarasses me that they spend so much on me, and I’m not going to ask them for money to pay for the excess weight,” she said.

Diosdado receives up to 100 dollars a month from her family members in the United States, which she spends entirely in the dollar-only stores that were opened in the mid-1990s.

The Cuban government has recently stocked the chain of stores with products purchased from United States food companies. Since December 2001, the Cuban government has imported 140 million dollars in U.S. food products, paid for in cash.

An amendment passed by the U.S. Congress in 2000 made it possible for companies from the United States to sell food and medicine to Cuba, but on a cash-only basis.

After the customs service released its initial statement, an official clarified that foreign tourists would be exempt from the new tax.

”There will be no change or modification in the customs duty procedures or the facilities currently extended to this category of travellers,” said the official, who admitted that the customs service had received a flood of inquiries from worried foreigners planning on travelling to Cuba.

She added that tourists ”can bring in their personal effects free of customs duties, without any weight limit.”

However, the new rule will apply to foreigners living temporarily or permanently in Cuba.

It was not clarified whether Cubans travelling for business purposes would be allowed to pay the customs duties in pesos.

CUBA: Travellers Upset over New Customs Rule on Excess Luggage

By Patricia Grogg Reprint | | Print |

Patricia Grogg

HAVANA, Oct 24 2002 (IPS) - Cubans in and outside the country are upset over a new surcharge on excess luggage, which foreign tourists, however, will be exempt from paying.
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