I had ten minutes, no more. Her assistant stayed close by to act as a reminder that the head of the US Small Business Administration did not have more time available. But in return I was rewarded with a conversation in Spanish with hints of Mexican. Maria Contreras-Sweet had recently returned from Cuba and was now in Stanford University, Palo Alto, bringing me news of what she had done in the island, which the press barely reported. She was satisfied with the fact that eleven Cubans, from the more than 700 entrepreneurs from all over the world present, had attended the 7th Global Entrepreneurship Summit. The day after our interview, her boss, President Obama, devoted a special greeting to the Cubans during his closing speech for the summit. "Hello, nice to meet you" he told them in Spanish, while his gaze sought them out in the theatre boxes. "They are ready to help create new opportunities for the Cuban people," he told those present. A week ago Contreras-Sweet had met with senior Cuban officials from the ministries of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Domestic Trade and Labour and Social Security. It was her second time in Cuba, after having part...

The University of Stanford has been taken over. Over 1000 people, invitees and hosts among them, roam around the all inclusive campus that impresses with its beauty and sophistication in this charming city of Mountain View. A city which is the general HQ of Google and NASA and one of the emblematic territories of Silicon Valley. You can see US government officials passing by everywhere. Various cabinet members, the Secretary of State, John Kerry included have been here for the last two days. Even President Obama will address the participants this Friday. He is the main inspiration and host of this 7th Global Entrepreneurship Summit that brings together over 700 entrepreneurs from across the world and over 300 investors, the majority of whom are American. Putting them in contact with one another is one of the aims. “The best thing the government can do it arrange a forum, make sure the coffee is hot and get out of the way”, said John Kerry An event of such magnitude is demonstrative of the level of this administration’s commitment to the promotion of entrepreneurial spirit. Kerry has explained it. For the administration there is a “direct relation between the creation of economic...

Gordon Matthew Thomas Sumner, Sting, visited Havana in mid-January, 2007. It was a private trip, but he didn’t hide away in his hotel room, or walked around in a punk costume, or docked a yacht at the Hemingway Marine. He didn’t want any press, but he accepted to be introduced to several Cuban artists, visit their houses, and have lunch or dinner with them. And he got help when he said that he wanted to learn to dance casino. Cuban photographer Ivan Soca accompanied Sting almost all the time during that visit. Soca has recently “declassified” some of the pictures he took of the British musician, a former member of The Police, and one of the artists who could soon perform in Cuba now that the thaw has started. Guitar player Dominic Miller, who has worked with Sting since 1991, launched his disc “Made in Cuba” in October 2015 in Havana, along with Manolito Simonet, and mentioned Sting’s interest to perform in Cuba. “I was recommended to be his photographer and he accepted,” said Soca. “I always keep my distance from the subject I’m taking pictures of; it’s a good way to give them confidence, and in the end they...

President Barack Obama will be arriving in Cuba soon. In a few hours, he will land in Cuba. Thousands of journalists and photographers are already in their posts. Cuban and Washington officials would probably wish this moment pass in the blink of an eye – and reopen them when the storm is over - but at the same time, nobody wants to miss the symbolism of this historic moment. Many things had to happen to get to this point, since the announcement was made on December 17, 2014, that Cuba and the United Sates would start talks to re-establish diplomatic relations. Embassies were reopened in the respective capital cities of both countires, and several officials of the Obama Administration visited the island in the previous months. Four packages of measures were also announced that aimed at easing embargo regulations. This preamble seeks to create the conditions to persuade the U.S. Congress to put an end to the embargo, while at the same time build trust on the Cuban side. From Sunday, March 20 to 22, Obama will be able to get his own first-hand look at Cuban society. This unprecedented event marks the end of an era and opens a...

When Alabama-based Cleber LCC presented its "Oggun" tractors at the Havana Trade Fair in 2015 as the first U.S.-Cuba joint venture that would operate in the Mariel Development Zone, the news was welcomed with enthusiasm. But lacking the necessary permits from both Cuba and the United States, the project did not advance much further . Now a recent announcement by the Department of the Treasury has brought the project back to life: the American side has granted the small company the licence it needed to file its application before the Cuban part at Mariel. Saul Berenthal, a Cuban national who now resides in the United States, and one of the executives of Cleber LLC, talked to OnCuba about the process that led to this point. In what sense are these tractors a solution tailored for the Cuban market? The idea came from the business model of American agriculture in the 1940s and part of the 1950s, when small farms owned by families were a majority in the sector. Everything changed later on, with the emergence of large estates and the introduction of larger trucks. We decided to use a design based on that old business model and upgrade it using...

Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy at the State Department, and one of the first American officials to get involved in the U.S.-Cuba normalization process, visited Cuba for the second time. He had been in Cuba before leading a governmental delegation that held talks with the Cuban government about telecommunications in March 2015. Although from different perspectives, both countries are very interested on the issue, which is a priority in the bilateral agenda. It is also a topic of great interest to the public, who have been expectant, hoping to see changes fast. Only a quarter of the Cuban population has access to the internet, according to official figures, and most of these connections are very slow. Few Cubans have access to the internet at home. Sepulveda said that on that first trip both sides held talks about the regulatory and legal changes made by the United States. “We explained our system of government and our legal structure for the exchange of commerce, particularly in technology and telecommunications, with our aim to have Cuban commercial entities – in his case ETECSA – and American communications and technology companies work together...

In recent years, the legislative sphere has been one of the most active as a result of the transitional process undertaken by Cuba through the “updating” of the economic model impelled by the government. New norms have been established to enshrine popular aspirations that had been postponed for years: advantages for the usufruct of lands, the authorization of self-employment, the right to purchase and sell real estate and vehicles, migratory reforms and an opening to foreign investment. Many new norms still need to be passed, others still await updating and the number of prohibitions must be reduced. To name only a few, these include a Cinema Law, being impelled by that sector (and still unaddressed), a communications or press law, about which we know nothing, a Family Code that has been waiting to see the light of day for years and will recognize same-sex couples, among other things, a telecommunications law which was promised but has not yet been passed and a new electoral law, which should arrive on the scene before the next elections for parliamentary representatives. The direction and scope of these legislative changes will largely depend on how the legislative process as such unfolds: on how democratic...

On September 15, 2013, Cuba’s Catholic bishops made public what remains their latest Pastoral Letter (“Hope Does Not Disappoint”). At the time, the Cuban and US governments were beginning a year and half of secret negations, negotiations which involved Pope Francis and led to the watershed of December 17, 2014. It’s been almost two years since Cuba’s Episcopal Conference sought to make public its vision about Cuba and clarify how the Church conceives and envisages the options it recommends or demands for the country in the midst of its reform process. The pastoral titled “Hope Does Not Disappoint” was also a homage to a previous pastoral letter, issued in 1993 and titled “Love Endures All Things,” whose diagnosis of Cuba’s social situation and the scope of its proposals expressed a clear will to influence the design of solutions to the crisis. In 1993, the island’s bishops were fairly critical of the Cuban government, at times practically suggesting it was solely responsible for all of the economic and social conflicts that the crisis brought to the surface or intensified fiercely during the first years of the Special Period. In 1998, by acknowledging the legitimacy of Cuban authorities through an invitation to...

We really don’t know here what interests our people, at least not with any certainty. Our Cuban “public agenda”, as the sociologists call it, is secret, confidential, and obscure. We lack independent pollsters interested in measuring and describing our collective thinking. At the same time our press is at the service of our institutions, addressing “on the street” topics only occasionally and on tiptoes. Hence, we Cubans are left to process “what we think we think” with great uncertainty. In Cuba we have erected that institution known as “Radio Bemba”, or the grapevine, as the most propitious entity for representing ourselves through rumors and thus attaining shared notions about the things that occur or should occur. Daily we adjust a good part of our world view in response to the list of issues scaling the Bemba hit parade on the streets. Recognizing how important a topic really is and how many people it touches may depend on how near or far we are from the “grieving” parties. Most of the time, the only feedback we get on “public events” comes from our own kitchens and intimate family circles, those discussions that are held peacefully or fought out tooth and nail...

RAFA-WAN KENOBI WELCOMES THEM. THEY NEVER ARRIVE TOGETHER, but they fly in every summer without fail. When this Kenobi is not a Jedi master with a laser sword, he is a 10-year-old boy who lives in Havana, and who waits for months to reunite with Fernando Skywalker and Thomas Palpatine. It won’t be a dream; he’ll have them right there with him at Tita’s house, which over the summer becomes a palace of fun, located near the La Rampa district. For the next two months, the three boys will become even more like brothers through their games and their inevitable quarrels and reconciliations. Every summer, the hero from the Galactic Republic and the evil Darth Sidious arrive, also transformed into 10-year-old boys, educated and quite happy. Fernando comes from the lovely Mexico, with a catchy “órale” that he utters less and less frequently as the days go by. His mom has been sending him alone since he was 5 years old. A flight attendant brings him right to the door of the terminal. On this side, Aunt Tita and Granma Mercedes welcome him like a trophy of peace. His messiness and absentmindedness bring a special rhythm to domestic events: “Fernan,...

2012: How many of us are there? According to the 2012 Population and Housing Census, Cuba has a population of 11,167,325: about 10,418 fewer than what was counted by the 2002 Census. About 18.3 percent are 60 or older, while just 17.2 percent are 0 to 14 years old. The census counted 3,882,424 homes. The economically active population totals 5,022,303 (54.3 percent of the total), and 78.3 percent of jobs are in the state sector. JANUARY: Round-trip travel Since Jan. 14, 2013, Decree-law 302 of Law 1312 (1976 Migration Law) has been in effect, and it is one of the legal changes that has the most impact to date not only on citizens’ rights but also on the economic dynamic, as part of the “updating” of the Cuban model. The new law, which eliminates the notorious exit permit (white card), allows Cubans to travel anywhere without any restrictions. One of the most important aspects for those who decide to emigrate to another country is the possibility of transferring their property. As of September 2013, Cubans had made 182,799 trips abroad, and more than 1,900 immigrants recovered their Cuban residency. JANUARY: Pay what you owe According to legislators, Cuba’s tax law...

In July 2013 the first 99 non-agricultural cooperatives engaged in the marketing of agricultural products began operating in Havana, Artemisa and Mayabeque provinces. The managers of the updating of the Cuban economic model with this measure are seeking to minimize the presence of intermediaries between the plantations and the selling places, and promote decentralized management business through this type of economic organizations. Although still there are not official public statistics about the behavior of prices in this period, researcher and economist Armando Nova has been able to notice in recent months that the prices of some products also in these new markets continue to increase. For Nova this is one of the reasons that warrant a systemic approach to the transformations that the agricultural sector has been undergoing, even before the appearance of the Guidelines in April 2011. That is precisely the focus of his essay "A new model of Cuban agricultural management" for which he received the 2013 Temas Award in the Social Sciences category, and encouraged this dialogue with Progreso Semanal, which OnCuba now reproduces. Milena Recio: Why a measure of decentralization, long awaited and advised by various analysts, does not yield the expected results? The end consumer...

Cubans born in the last 20 years are unlikely to associate their country’s physical landscape with a cow; not so with its cultural landscape. The tradition brought by the Spanish and that developed in the 20th century, “from Canadian cows and bulls to the world-record setting Ubre Blanca and the little cow Pijirigua, from Pedro Luis Ferrer’s famous guaracha,” implanted in the Cuban imagination a certain “obsession with eating a good steak or drinking a cup of milk with coffee at breakfast.”1 In 1980, the country produced 303,000 tons of beef, but in 1992, only 152,000. Cattle-raising, which crowned the Cuban economy in colonial times—before it was displaced by sugar cane—and which grew notably after 1959, collapsed after the disappearance of the USSR. The necessary supplies stopped coming. Feed had to be made self-sustaining through the use of grasses, proteinaceous trees, sugar cane, and a non-protein source of nitrogen. The industry never has returned to its former level.2 The cattle sector is also strategic: it closes agricultural cycles in general, ensuring their equilibrium. In the first semester of 2012, total cattle production shrunk by 4.9 percent compared to the first quarter of the previous year. Beef also decreased, while milk...

When the 1995 foreign investment law, Law 77, was passed, it was an innovation, the outcome of urgently needed adjustments to economic policy that arose following the Special Period. It sought to ease the profound crisis and to set out, using new terms, the foundations of the country’s development. But not that radically. While Law 77 makes it possible to invest in almost any sector and without any limits on capital contributions, its implementation has been at discretion and reserved. “The policy of assimilation of investment and contracts has been far from stable over the last 20 years. While there was a boom of foreign investment in the 1990s, determined by the needs of the crisis of those years, this projection changed radically beginning in 2003.” (1) Beginning in 2008, with the Economic and Social Policy Guidelines (known as the Lineamientos) probable changes to the legal framework were raised. The purpose was “to perfect regulations and procedures for evaluation, approval, and implementation of the participation of foreign investment, and simultaneously streamline the process.” Likewise, this calls for “rigorous control over compliance with regulations, procedures, and commitments contracted by the foreign party when any form of foreign investment is constituted.” (2)...

That “white gold” was such an important part of shaping the nation that some economic sectors worked successfully to propagate the myth that “without sugar there would be no country.”

This summer, as all previous ones, is really when children start leaving. They have been packing their bags for days. They put in them the human and the divine: bizarre toys and chocolate breakfast, the last book he received, the umbrella of flowers - because surely it rains - the chain of gold, the irrevocable sleeping pillow ... They say goodbye to everyone, but without nostalgia. It is the only trip that is not into nothingness. They grab their luggage with an enviable resolution. They make them roll like Lamborghinis on polished slabs in the living room. They go and down the stairs while the mother bites her nails. Soon they ask for a juice and some crackers. When it's time the father fits their caps, and the mother looks at the hair buckles. They cannot avoid the "behave yourself, listen to your ...". A watered flight attendant receives with too much affectation, in short, fatuous and false. But they are big enough and know what they do. Nothing will happen: they are the travelling children, who did not fear planes and know how to go to the bathroom alone, and fast the seat belt back  . The planes are...

That is an imperative. If professionals don’t bring their competency into play in non-state forms of employment, it’s going to be much harder to solve strategic matters for the country that are currently being addressed with imports or not at all.

Just eight days after his proclamation as president of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro Moro traveled to Havana on April 27 to take care personally ratify the course of bilateral relations since 2004 set by the Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement , by the then presidents Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez. In his second trip abroad as President-previously he only had traveled to Peru for Unasur meeting-, Maduro was received as Chavez's political successor. It was a visit that at various times evoked the memory of the late Bolivarian leader, and allows dispelling doubts about the continuity of relations between the two countries. A team of very senior government officials from Caracas and Havana worked intensely over just two days in the signing of 51 new mutual collaborative projects and -obviously delineated - fundamental in the areas of health, education, culture and sport. At the end of the Thirteenth Intergovernmental Commission between the two countries, Maduro confirmed that it is a "historic partnership that transcends time," while his host, President Raul Castro, said the agreements honored the lines drawn by the Homeland Plan 2013-2019 of the Bolivarian government, bequeathed by the late Chavez. He also mentioned as a policy framework of these agreements the...

Reinaldo Funes Monzote spent all Saturday March 30 at Boyeros, retracing the Agroindustrial International Food Fair, which everyone has baptized, shortened as Agricultural Fair. It's his job. He doesn’t raise cows or saddles horses, or drives herds. He moves around shooting photos and talking, but he is not a journalist. There you could find him, trying to grasp, above all, a style, a becoming, and a culture. Because he is a historian: a chronicler interested in issues related to Cuban agriculture and enviroment.  So he went to the Fair this year again and found it full of people of Havana, and from across the country, buying, selling, having fun. It's typical. Funes, a researcher with the Antonio Nuñez Jiménez Foundation for Nature and Man, knows by heart how such events that the media cover like a weekend ride, helped, at all times, to develop cattle raising in Cuba. This activity, like sugar and tobacco, shaped our identity, and was present at all the crossroads of Cuban history. Reinaldo Funes Monzote, historian Throughout the history of cattle rising in Cuba, throughout the nineteenth century, and during the twentieth livestock shows played an important role in stimulating the economy. Do they have...