CEPAL
The United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, which projects Cuba's GDP to contract by around 6 to 7 percent in 2026 and by more than 10 percent cumulatively across 2025 to 2026.
CEPAL, the UN's Latin America and Caribbean economic commission, projects Cuba's economy will contract 6.5 per cent in 2026, 10.3 per cent cumulatively since 2025, figures that framed the National Assembly's 18 June reform vote and the EU's June sanctions debate.
Last refreshed: 17 July 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Why does CEPAL's Cuba GDP estimate matter when Cuba does not publish official figures?
Timeline for CEPAL
Mentioned in: Cuba blames blockade for 64% gas rise
Cuba DispatchProjected 6.5% GDP contraction and 10.3% cumulative 2025-2026 contraction
Cuba Dispatch: Cuba opens its market in 176 stepsProjected 6.5% contraction in 2026 and 10.3% cumulative 2025-2026
Cuba Dispatch: Tourism falls 55.8% as the peso slidesBackground
CEPAL, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (also known by its English acronym ECLAC), is one of the United Nations' five regional economic commissions, headquartered in Santiago, Chile, and reporting through the UN Economic and Social Council. It provides economic research, data and policy analysis for 46 member states and 13 associate members across Latin America and the Caribbean.
CEPAL is the principal multilateral source for Cuban economic statistics precisely because Cuba does not publish internationally standardised GDP accounts; it constructs estimates from alternative indicators rather than official returns. That makes its annual projections the closest available approximation to an official economic baseline for the island, a role it does not play to the same degree for countries with conventional national accounts.
Its Cuba figures carry weight beyond Havana: EU and multilateral discussions on Cuba policy, including the European Parliament's own resolutions, have cited data consistent with CEPAL's broader Latin America and Caribbean outlook.
CEPAL data frames Cuba's reform push
CEPAL's projections are the closest thing to an official economic baseline for Cuba, which does not publish internationally standardised national accounts. Its estimate of a 6 to 7 per cent GDP contraction in 2026, cited on 15 June 2026 alongside a tourism collapse (only 30,883 arrivals in May, visitor numbers down 55.8 per cent year on year) and a record informal peso rate of 670 to the dollar, framed independent economist Pedro Monreal's warning that Cuba's reforms cannot work without foreign currency.
Three days later, on 18 June, the National Assembly passed 176 measures in the deepest market opening since the 1960s nationalisations, a package whose scale only makes sense against CEPAL's contraction figures. Its data has become the reference point both sides use: Havana implicitly, by acting on the scale of the crisis it describes, and Brussels explicitly, citing figures consistent with CEPAL's outlook in the European Parliament's June sanctions resolution.
What is CEPAL's forecast for Cuba's economy in 2026?
Why do analysts use CEPAL figures for Cuba's GDP when Cuba has no official data?
What is CEPAL and what does it do?
