Editing Economy of Cuba (section)

===Special Period (1991-1994)===
{{Main|Special Period}}
The Cuban gross domestic product declined at least 35% between 1989 and 1993 due to the loss of 80% of its trading partners{{Clarify|date=August 2009}} and Soviet [[subsidy|subsidies]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/cuba/economy.htm|title=Cuba's Economy|author=John Pike|website=Globalsecurity.org|access-date=11 June 2015}}</ref> This loss of subsidies coincided with a collapse in world sugar prices. Sugar had done well from 1985 to 1990, crashed precipitously in 1990 and 1991 and did not recover for five years. Cuba had been insulated from world sugar prices by Soviet price guarantees. However, the Cuban economy began to improve again following a rapid improvement in trade and diplomatic relations between Cuba and Venezuela following the election of [[Hugo Chávez]] in Venezuela in 1998, who became Cuba's most important trading partner and diplomatic ally.

This era was referred to as the "Special Period in Peacetime",<ref name=":022" />{{Rp|page=84}} later shortened to "[[Special Period]]". A ''[[Canadian Medical Association Journal]]'' paper claimed, "The famine in Cuba during the Special Period was caused by political and economic factors similar to the ones that caused a [[famine in North Korea]] in the mid-1990s because both countries were run by authoritarian regimes that denied ordinary people the food to which they were entitled to when the public food distribution collapsed and priority was given to the elite classes and the military."<ref name="cmaj">{{cite journal |date=29 July 2008 |title=Health Consequences of Cuba's Special Period |journal=Canadian Medical Association Journal |volume=179 |issue=3 |page=257 |doi=10.1503/cmaj.1080068 |pmc=2474886 |pmid=18663207}}</ref> Other reports painted an equally dismal picture, describing Cubans having to resort to eating anything they could find, from Havana Zoo animals to domestic cats.<ref name="parrotdiplomacy">{{cite news|url=http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=11792274|title=Parrot diplomacy|newspaper=The Economist|date=24 July 2008}}</ref> But although the collapse of centrally planned economies in the Soviet Union and other countries of the Eastern bloc subjected Cuba to severe economic difficulties, which led to a drop in calories per day from 3052 in 1989 to 2600 in 2006, mortality rates were not strongly affected thanks to the priority given on maintaining a [[social safety net]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/08/cubas_organic_r.php|title=Cuba's Organic Revolution|work=TreeHugger|access-date=11 June 2015}}</ref>