Cuba's Communist Party has approved an emergency economic package that includes a series of unprecedented free-market measures, according to ABC News. The package is aimed at opening up the struggling island's economy following heightened pressure from the United States.
The full document has not been released publicly, but Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel and other officials have outlined the key proposals. The measures are expected to decentralize Cuba's state-run economy, in which the government currently determines what is produced, who produces it, the prices at which goods are sold, and how resources are allocated.
Under the proposed changes, municipalities would receive greater authority to approve businesses operating within their jurisdictions and to manage relations with economic actors, including state-owned enterprises, cooperatives, and private companies. Cuba has 168 municipalities across its 15 provinces. Municipalities would also be allowed to import and export goods and manage their own foreign-currency revenue.
Companies would be permitted to design their own pay systems, use and distribute profits with fewer restrictions, import and export goods directly, and enter into partnerships with private businesses and cooperatives. Small and medium-sized enterprises would no longer be required to route imports and exports through state-run entities that currently oversee the process and set fees.
The reforms would also phase out Cuba's post-revolution rationing system, which has long guaranteed access to basic products at low, controlled prices. Under the new measures, food and other goods would gradually move to market pricing.
Legislation has been introduced to reduce the number of government ministries from 27 to 21 for greater efficiency. The reforms also broaden the range of activities that state-owned companies are permitted to undertake. Cuba has approximately 2,000 state-owned enterprises.
Recent U.S. sanctions against Cuba's business conglomerate Gaesa forced historic hotel chains including Meliá and Iberostar to suspend contracts with their Cuban counterparts. New measures include finding ways to utilize the island's nearly abandoned infrastructure.
Díaz-Canel has said the emergency plan was shaped by the experiences of China and Vietnam, two communist countries that introduced market-oriented economic reforms while maintaining one-party rule.
