The Cuban peso is at its weakest against the US dollar since the 1990s, a currency tracker said Sunday, as the communist island struggles through its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet bloc.

According to the independent magazine El Toque, which publishes a daily list of unofficial exchange rates, it now costs 150 Cuban pesos to buy a US dollar – and the same to buy a euro – on the informal foreign exchange market.

“The exchange rate reflects the decline in national manufacturing activity, scarcity, monetary imbalances and desperation,” Colombia-based Cuban economist Pavel Vidal told AFP.

Cuba is experiencing its worst economic crisis since the 1990s, with food and medicine shortages and daily power outages.

The island’s currency hit a low of 150 by the end of the week, slipping slightly from the previous rate of 148 pesos to the dollar.

The island’s central bank, trying to stem peso depreciation, began trading at a fixed parity of 120 pesos in state exchange offices last month — the same rate then prevailing in the informal market.

The dollar soared in January 2021 after the central government in Havana announced financial reforms and fixed the official exchange rate at 24 pesos.

This triggered a cost spiral, and the inflation rate reached 70 percent by the end of 2021.

Vidal said the government’s “desperate” efforts to source foreign exchange to pay for imports and support manufacturing activity are understandable.

“However,” he said, “the foreign exchange market is not the way.”

A fixed rate of 120 pesos to the dollar “won’t work in an economy that continues to suffer from a balance of payments crisis” and where an aging power system causes regular blackouts.