Cuba’s prime minister presented comprehensive measures to parliamentarians this Thursday, supported by the Communist Party and former leader Raúl Castro, proposing the privatization of a vast portion of its socialist economy, in an attempt to survive severe United States sanctions.
The measures, if approved by parliamentarians and implemented, are expected to represent the biggest single change in Cuba’s socialist model since the 1959 revolution led by former leader Fidel Castro and a shift towards a market economy.
Presented by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, the reforms would open the doors to private real estate development on the Caribbean island, transform state-owned companies into private commercial enterprises with shares and equity stakes, and allow private banks to enter the once state-dominated Cuban financial sector.
The measures would also significantly reduce bureaucracy for private companies and entrepreneurs on the island.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel told the Communist Party’s Politburo that the measures are urgent and necessary, amid intensifying U.S. sanctions aimed at crippling the country’s communist leadership.
“We need to release production, to increase supply and reduce restrictions,” said Díaz-Canel in a speech broadcast this Thursday morning.
The list of 175 measures presented by the prime minister in a nearly two-hour speech to parliamentarians now requires a vote by the National Assembly to be implemented.
The one-party system, led by communists, usually votes unanimously on government proposals.
Party officials called the reforms comprehensive but still true to the government’s socialist roots.
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Many of these proposals, under discussion for months or years without having been implemented, returned to the center of the debate amid pressure from the United States.
Indicted in May in the United States on murder charges, Raúl Castro supported the proposals in a letter presented to the Politburo on Wednesday, classifying them as “beneficial” and urging their rapid implementation.
The Trump administration’s sanctions have devastated Cuba’s already struggling economy, preventing oil from reaching the island, forcing an exodus of foreign companies and decimating the all-important tourism industry with days-long blackouts, runaway inflation and shortages of fuel, water and medicine.
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