HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba’s economic reforms began taking shape yesterday as the government said it would allow or expand private enterprise in 178 activities ranging from watch repairs to massages, to help assure the survival of socialism.
Cubans will be able to open restaurants, repair homes and cars, train animals, sell wine, provide transportation, work as clowns and open many other businesses, some currently prohibited by the communist-led government.
The plan, outlined in Communist Party newspaper Granma, said the government was considering providing bank credits to the new entrepreneurs, who will be able to hire employees for the first time since small businesses were nationalized in 1968.
While the measures steal from capitalism, the key goal of the reform is to “defend, maintain and continue perfecting socialism” by increasing productivity, Granma said.
Self employment, it said, gives a worker “another way of feeling useful with his personal effort.”
Similar steps were taken in the 1990s as Cuba struggled to survive when its economy collapsed after the fall of the Caribbean island’s key benefactor, the Soviet Union.
In 1996, the number of self-employed peaked at 209,000, but when the economy improved, the government, in the name of ideological purity, backed off the reforms and restricted the issuance of new licenses. Cuba currently has 143,000 licensed self-employed.
With its economy struggling again, Cuba has said it will lay off 500,000 workers from state payrolls and, starting in October, issue 250,000 licenses for self-employment to help create private sector jobs for them.
Another 200,000 government jobs will shift over to employee-run cooperatives and leasing arrangements.
More than 85 percent of the Cuban labour force, or over 5 million people, worked for the government at the close of 2009, according to official figures.
