The fourth edition of Quórum took place this Friday at the Meliá Habana Hotel. The event is organized by AUGE, a private corporate services enterprise with more than ten years of experience.
The one-day meeting took a look at the current context of the private sector in Cuba, analyzed possible scenarios in the near future and in the long term for ventures, and motivated non-state entrepreneurs to create strategies for the year that has just begun.
“Holding business events is one of the most important lines we have. Bringing together our clients, our community, is crucial, not only to learn from them and incorporate their experiences closest to practice, but also to gain new clients and make ourselves visible in the market.
“Quórum is a space that we wanted to solidify as the starting point for the year that is beginning, a time to discuss and visualize what the year brings, not only for private enterprises; foreign companies, commercial offices present in Cuba and state enterprises have also joined,” explained Oniel Díaz Castellanos, general manager of AUGE, who offered the opening words of the meeting.
The program included the presentation of tools and spaces for participants to create connections, talks and analysis by experts.
The enterprise made available to participants El Termómetro and the Informe de Delitos Corporativos en Cuba (Corporate Crimes in Cuba), guides so that entrepreneurs can carry out a self-appraisal of their business and find deficiencies or weaknesses, as well as tools to solve them.
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The presentations were given by analysts and project leaders, as well as representatives of the European Union, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
“This year’s subject matters were focused on three points. First, to review everything that could happen in 2025 from a regulatory point of view, in economic policy and also related to the Cuba-United States policy.
“A second subject was centered on control. In recent months, the authorities have increased the control environment over private activity and we have discussed this issue with the prism that we must learn to live with it, because it is something common in any economy; and finally, the State-private sector relationship, which is not a minor issue.
“Everything seems to indicate that during 2025 the authorities want to rethink how the state enterprise has linked with the private enterprise. We do not necessarily see it as a limitation, but as an opportunity to apply the correct models, the appropriate contractual figures that can allow more concrete businesses to be executed,” Oniel explained.
Other issues were also part of the analysis. One of them was the application of Resolution 56 of the Ministry of Domestic Trade as of next May, the entry into force of the approval and processing of MSMEs at the municipal level; as well as political, economic and social measures that the country faces and that also have an impact on the private business level, such as the partial dollarization of the Cuban economy, changes in the area of foreign investments and the legislative schedule of the National Assembly of People’s Power in 2025.
Private sector’s diversity gives voice to Quórum
The general preparation provided by this meeting between actors dedicated to very different activities and of very diverse types in their own forms of management: MSMEs, Local Development Projects (PDL), Self-Employed Workers (TCP) and non-agricultural cooperatives is one of the essential motivations for those who participate.
Juan José Puerto, director of operations at Dataplus, a startup focused on data network solutions and security systems, has been one of AUGE’s clients since its inception. He believes that this event “sets a vision, guidelines to follow in the private sector, guiding us with tools, with knowledge, and allows us to prepare ourselves, because sometimes in the dynamics of carrying out our business we overlook legislative and regulatory issues, details that we skip over. These meetings put us in the right direction.”
“Keeping up to date with current events and those issues that we absolutely have to master” is what Camila Arrieta, designer and creative director of La Cabra Studio, a silkscreen solutions workshop, considers most important; while Yudeisy Valdés Martínez, president of the accounting business Contval SRL, believes that the event “represents everything that is happening right now in Cuba, which is a total crisis. There is a lot of uncertainty in the private sector.”
The possibility of networking or, in Spanish, creating contacts, weaving a network of alliances or even a community, is another of the possibilities offered by this event.
For Cinthia García, partner and manager of the MSME Lo que está por venir SRL, one of the 400 wholesale marketers that will be part of the experiment after the application of Resolution 56, “exchanging in spaces like this with other entrepreneurs, with enterprises with a similar social purpose and from a different scope enriches us. The experiences of one are not those of another; the situation of one can be experiences for others, even if the enterprises coincide in social purpose, they are run by people with different strategies. The exchange is always vital.”
“One of the things that I have learned here is that it is very important to make alliances because you stop seeing others as competition, but as someone with whom you can walk hand in hand and carry forward, both your business, and cooperate with them so that they carry theirs,” says Maricel Ponvert Iser, CEO of D’Marie Centro Holístico de Bienestar, TCP, which is currently preparing its transition to a MSME.
“The space that AUGE is creating for us is important, especially in terms of meeting more clients. We have clients abroad, but we are starting to have some in Cuba as well. The private sector is a space that we need to get into deeper. In addition, we find many colleagues in the sector here that we don’t see much because we are in our own world. Here we have been able to make contact again and perhaps reestablish some alliance,” says Alian Rigñack, CEO and president of Cuban Engineer SRL, a software development enterprise.
A decade later, a still uncertain path
AUGE already has ten years of experience in the work of advising entrepreneurs in Cuba, a process of teaching and learning. Oniel Díaz Castellanos, its general manager, summarizes the approach they have followed.
“When we started, we had the thesis that Cubans did know how to run an enterprise, how to run a business, what was not there were the appropriate conditions for enterprises and businesses to flourish.
“All of that began to change precisely from 2011 onwards with the reform promoted by the Communist Party, what we know as the Guidelines. This opening generated more business presence, more diversification of products and services in the market and it became visible very quickly. In order to move forward, it is necessary to understand what an enterprise is going to do, the communication, the marketing, the strategy, because Cubans, in general, are knowledgeable, informed, educated people, but there were no adequate conditions for that knowledge to be applied.
“From 2021 onwards, with the appearance of thousands of MSMEs and the diversification of the business fabric in Cuba, it is precisely that these conditions are becoming more visible, clearer, and I believe that life has naturally been leading everyone to understand what has to be known, what this is about and how to project yourself to work.
“We make a contribution to that knowledge, but we believe that there is an exceptional starting point, which is the inventiveness, the capacity for adaptation and entrepreneurship that Cubans have,” he explained.
Planning and preparing for what is to come is an essential objective of AUGE’s work and for which they carry out Quórum.
“The future is uncertain; private enterprise is here to stay. It is already a normal part of the Cuban business system. Frankly, I think that it is not the intention of the authorities, nor is there a way to reverse all that. We are talking about a sector that employs 35% of the workforce and contributes to 15% of the country’s GDP, and that cannot be undone.
“Now, this 2025 is full of new regulations, of new changes in the economy that can tip the balance to one side or the other, and I think that the intelligent thing, the truly productive thing, is to try to understand, to anticipate those changes and always have the capacity to adjust and continue moving forward,” he concluded.
