Havana creates an official printed (and online) trader
A monthly brochure designed to promote trade among the civilian population will begin publication next May, the daily Granma announced Tuesday (April 7). It will be called “Ofertas” (Offers) and will be priced at 3 Cuban pesos.
“With a monthly circulation of 60,000 copies in full color, ‘Ofertas’ seeks to become the perfect advertising medium for the new economic actors — self-employed entrepreneurs and cooperative members — and socialist-state businesses,” the newspaper said, quoting Edda Diz Garcés, director of AIN, the national news agency that will publish it.
Introducing the new publication, Diz Garcés said that it will have 16 pages, 8 of which will contain classified ads “where natural and legal persons may promote the purchase or sale of various goods and services at affordable prices.”
Granma did not say who will determine if the prices are “affordable.” Neither did it list advertising rates or other conditions, but the official site Cubadebate published some rate cards (click here).
In addition to ads, the publication will “contain useful advice, guidance, help and suggestions to start businesses on the island, which is steeped in a process of updating its economic model and searching for more efficient ways to function.” Citizens who wish to obtain that advice or want to place an ad may write to ofertas@ofertas.cu, Cubadebate suggests.
The objective of “Ofertas” is “to be a dependable, legal and attractive space for readers and advertisers, for the quality of its content, which will have an abundance of graphic elements, and the price, which will be very competitive in comparison with that of other national publications of this type,” the article said, quoting Jorge Legañoa Alonso, AIN’s deputy director.
Legañoa and Antonio Moltó, president of the Cuban Journalists’ Guild, also announced the debut, “in the next few days,” of an online “platform for classified ads, the only one in Cuba with a dot-cu domain (.cu).”
That site may be accessed “from any national network without the need to access the Internet,” the officials told Granma. The site will be updated daily, Cubadebate noted.
Several websites devoted to private trade already exist in Cuba, the best known being www.revolico.com. According to its unidentified creators, the site was set up years ago by “a small but functional team of programmers who one day felt the need for a simpler, better organized and more efficient way to advertise and review what other people were advertising.”
