Cuba announces a large package of economic reforms to open tourism, foreign trade and investments

The announcement, made by surprise and only before Cuban media, was justified by the internal situation of the island and the economic pressure from the United States, but was not linked to the negotiation with Washington, which has made explicit on multiple occasions its interest in Cuba undertaking profound economic and political reforms.

Díaz-Canel spoke of adapt the country to “the demands of current times”, to streamline and energize the economy, to decentralize and provide greater “autonomy” to different actors, both state companies, provinces and municipalities, and the private sector, on the island and abroad.

“These are times when we have to change and the country cannot continue functioning the same,” he stressed.

This package, he added, will be ratified in the coming weeks by the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal one), the heart of power on the island, and will then be evaluated by the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP, unicameral legislative), which always unanimously approves the proposals that come to it.

“The country is not stopped. The country is facing this whole situation with intelligence. We cannot say everything so clearly because the enemy is stalking everything we do. Our response has to be that of unity,” said the president.

These changes, regardless of the origin of their proposal, go in the direction that Washington has pointed towards, although – pending their implementation – they do not seem as substantive as those demanded by President Donald Trump’s administration.

Among the measures announced, the opening to “new modalities” and “new actors” in the tourism sector stands out, one of the country’s old economic engines, to “exploit” the island’s hotel park after the recent total or partial withdrawal of the main foreign companies (including the Spanish Meliá and Iberostar) to avoid US sanctions

Since then, the operations of fifty hotel facilities owned by the Cuban State (and mostly by Gaviota, a company of the military conglomerate, Gaesa) that were managed by these four hotel companies have been left in the air.

Díaz-Canel also spoke about reforming the real estate business and specifically with regard to tourism, where he noted changes in management and the search for “new modalities” and “new actors.”

The Cuban State is the owner of the hotels on the island, with more than 84,000 rooms, and also has large real estate rental companies.

He also spoke of increasing the “autonomy” of state companies in terms of salaries, investment of profits (profits), import and export, association with other economic actors, design of business plans and access to the exchange market.

The Cuban president indicated that importers, state companies that necessarily mediate all foreign trade, will be eliminated so that this sector is “more dynamic,” and he advanced the end of limitations on the import of vehicles.

The reforms will also reach the countrysidesaid Díaz-Canel, who pointed out that agricultural producers will be allowed to directly purchase inputs, associate with different actors, hold “real” accounts (with cash backing), participate in the exchange market and will try to make their bureaucratic procedures “as light as possible.”

The president stressed that the government wants to “incentivize” foreign direct investment and highlighted at this point the role that Cubans residing abroad can play, who will have the same conditions as their compatriots on the island.

Díaz-Canel once again took up the Executive’s intention to “gradually advance by eliminating product subsidies” – in reference to the supply books (ration cards), increasingly brief but still universal – to gradually take the social system towards “subsidies for people”, focused on vulnerable groups.

Cuba has been in a serious structural crisis for more than six years that has contracted its economy by more than 15% between 2020 and 2025. However, US pressure since this January, with an oil blockade and a new wave of secondary sanctions, has worsened the precariousness on the island.