Cuba is opening fuel, medicines, tourism and land to private activity, but the state still controls the sectors defining political and economic power.
The country has begun implementing an extensive economic overhaul that allows greater private and foreign participation in fuel distribution, medicine imports, agriculture, tourism and care services as the island confronts severe shortages, recurring blackouts and declining state capacity.
200 Cuban businesses have already received permission to participate in wholesale fuel distribution, while the government has authorised the first foreign-investment venture permitted to import and sell fuel in Cuba.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said the reforms would not result in the mass privatisation of national assets. Healthcare, science, culture and services considered strategically important to the country will remain protected from full private control.
The reforms represent a significant expansion of market activity within Cuba’s socialist system, but implementation will be gradual. Cuba has announced ambitious economic changes before, only to delay, narrow or reverse them when political resistance, administrative restrictions or external pressure intensified.
Full story Cuba opens fuel, medicine and tourism sectors as economic crisis forces
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