The recent rise in world prices of crude oil has seriously impaired Cuba's ability to import the fuel, Deputy Minister of Finance Jose Gonzalez Frances said Thursday in Havana.
In remarks made on national television and broadcast over Radio Rebelde, Gonzalez said Cuba will spend about $1 billion in fuel this year.
A projection based on expenditures from January to August indicates ``that our country will have to pay about $100 million more than budgeted for its imports of fuel and lubricants,'' Gonzalez said. ``Prices did not behave as expected.''
Gonzalez said Cuba is going through ``a very difficult financial situation'' with overseas fuel suppliers, and that the nation's hard currency reserves must be used for food, as well as fuel.
Jorge Perez Lopez, an economist living in Washington, said the decrease in crude oil purchases by Cuba is bound to have a negative effect on the nation's economic growth.
``The [growth] figures of 7 or 9 percent that Cuba anticipated for the first semester were questionable from the start,'' Perez said. ``With this reduction in the supplies of crude, the [economic] growth could be zero, even negative,'' he added.
Gonzalez's statements appear to presage a new crisis in Cuba, a country that -- according to some government officials -- gauges its oil imports on a day-to-day basis.
``Taking into consideration the price increase, which will make it harder for us to pay for the needed imports, we foresee that the existing restrictions will continue,'' Gonzalez said.
``So far this year, we have been unable to guarantee the volume of imports needed to satisfy our kerosene consumption,'' he said.
Last week, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Eduardo Chao said the farming industry will suffer ``harsh restrictions as regards energy sources.'' Fuel cutbacks would be in the range of $11 million, he said.
Also last week, Havana's Communist Party leader Esteban Lazo said that diesel fuel distribution in Havana province will be reduced by 35 percent in the coming months. Kerosene distribution will be cut back by 16 percent, he said.
© 1996 The Miami Herald.