The fourth month of 2025 is coming to an end; a month full of interesting events. Domestically:
- The postponement of the implementation of a highly contested resolution (Ministry of Domestic Trade’s 56th Resolution);
- The release of another resolution that theoretically seeks to regulate, control, and promote charcoal exports by creating a closed foreign exchange scheme that deprives producers of 63% of their income, when charcoal hasn’t needed any until now and has earned its status as an important export commodity on its own, without any resolution;
- The release of a bill on land ownership that excludes a portion of national enterprises from leasing, investing in, and putting into production land, the same land that has remained uncultivated for years;
- The proposal of a business plan to some companies based in Mariel, allowing them to operate with an exchange rate of 120 CUP per USD, saving investors a significant amount of USD expenditures for salary payments and substantially improving workers’ incomes; but at the same time, limiting these same companies’ use of their MLC accounts for domestic operations;
- A growing dollarization process, most evident in the increase in the number of stores selling in physical dollars or cards backed by “real” liquidity;
- The undeniably deserved salary increases for certain professions in the health sector and in education at branch schools. One of its goals is to slow/halt/reduce, even slightly, the loss of qualified personnel in these sectors, even though in the case of the medical sector it creates differences between professions that need each other (what is more important: an anesthesiologist or a surgeon?). And, although it may seem paradoxical, the health sector is the most profitable of all our “productive” sectors, the one that generates the most export revenue and the one that requires the fewest imported inputs to do so. It is far removed from tourism, nickel, sugar, rum, and tobacco. That is why I find it hard to understand why our doctors have to work in such harsh conditions here in the “domestic market” and why their salaries are not the highest of all. The health sector remains our dairy cow; we should feed it better;
- The repeated postponement, due to its complexity, of the adoption of an exchange rate regime that would create a minimum of trust in businesses, transparency in accounts, and adequate signals for the allocation of resources;
- The discovery of significant flaws in the enterprises that manage our foreign trade, resulting in the country paying and losing a great deal of money, as well as for enterprises that export or import;
- The confirmation that the approval process of MSMEs has slowed down so much that only a little over a dozen have been approved in recent months. This leads one to believe that the assertion that there is no war against MSMEs is contradicted by the facts, while the organization created as their representative barely issues any opinions on the matter;
- The confirmation that the sugar harvest fell short of the planned target of 299.8 thousand tons, which jeopardizes the planned 22,000 tons of refined sugar and compromises the 30,000 tons for export. A report on Cuban television at the end of March described some of the reasons that compromised this goal. At the time of this report, 32% of the planned sugar production had been achieved, and 41% of the promised sugarcane had been milled.
- The poor performance of the tourism sector for the first three months of 2025 is confirmed. Cuba received 30% fewer international visitors.
- We have received the good news of the signing of a significant group of agreements and projects in the health sector with companies and the government of the People’s Republic of China.
These first four months also confirm that what has been done is still far from what needs to be done. We’ve loaded ourselves with measures and regulations, laws and decree laws, ministerial resolutions, circulars, and guidelines.… We’ve dedicated more thought, time, and effort to regulating/limiting and cornering the growth of MSMEs (only 15% of GDP and well under 10% of export revenue) than to state-owned enterprises, which is undoubtedly one of the greatest distortions lurking among us, visible to everyone.
We want the economy to recover, but we are doing almost everything necessary to ensure that part of that economy, the one that more or less has some momentum, loses it (the charcoal déjà vu returns), while we continue to postpone ad infinitum what would help us gradually reverse the multi-crisis our country is facing.
Money. Cuba needs money if it wants to embark on the path of sustainable growth. Today, it has very little capacity to produce it solely through domestic efforts. Our economy needs large flows of foreign investment, and also from Cubans abroad. Many years ago, it was estimated that some $2.5 billion was required annually. Today, I am convinced, that need has at least doubled. With the regulations we have today, with the legal framework we have, with the treatment so far removed from international standards we have, it will be very difficult for foreign investors to take the risk of facing the threat of persecution from Mr. Trump and his team.
But we have other investors: local ones, for whom we do not make things easy either and even simply exclude them from potential investment sectors, as the Bill on Land Ownership, Possession, and Use proposes (Article 39.1, paragraph 4).
Cuba needs everyone, Cubans and foreigners with the will to do what they want and the resources to do it. Our regulations should help achieve this goal; they should be like shoes, tight enough to fit the foot that wears them, allowing for light walking, but not so tight that it causes pain, nor so loose that it hinders stride.
