Next year should be the Foreign Investment in Cuba if the custom established by Fidel Castro to name the years in accordance with the historical moment, either by the political event or by a change or economic sector would have more important context is kept. Not only because the port of Mariel opens its docks and the Special Development Zone, but the emergence of a new legal framework … and the circumstances in which it will be approved.
In March 2014, the National People’s Assembly shall meet in extraordinary session to discuss the new Law on Foreign Investment. Cuban President Raul Castro reported it in his speech during the last meeting of the legislature of the island in 2013.
He referred to the “improvement of the policy for foreign investment” , commenting that they are working on the development of future legislation to regulate the entry and stay of entrepreneurs and foreign capital in the country.
The Cuban National Assembly is not used to call extraordinary sessions. The latter was requested by former President Fidel Castro, in August 2010. Exceptionally, the Cuban Parliament will break the habit and will meet outside their usual dates to discuss the new law.
None of these economic changes was discussed at a special session of the National Assembly. The Guidelines (program of economic reforms by Raul Castro), the Tax Act and the Labour Code, to cite examples were discussed and approved at the regular meetings that take place every year in late December.
Many of the far-reaching measures in recent years even passed by the National Assembly, and were approved at the time by the State Council (representative body of Parliament between its sessions), or by the Council of Ministers.
“Slowly but surely” is the phrase that Raúl Castro himself uses to describe the rate at which he aspires to leave the updating of the Cuban economic model. It can be deduced that the National Assembly will not meet in March 2014 to accelerate the adoption of the new law, but to discuss, exclusively, its contents, without spending its agenda in other topics.
The Havana government gave several signs in recent months of 2013 of an opening to foreign investment and changes in the legal framework that regulates it. In November this year, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez admitted, during a working visit to Japan, that it will soon enter into force a new law to attract foreign entrepreneurs.
Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca, said in his opening speech of the International Fair of Havana Fihav2013, that they are working on changes to the legislation of one of the areas it serves, although without referring specifically to any project or total overhaul to replace Law 77 of 1994, which currently defines how the foreign investment is made in Cuba.
The special circumstances in which this legislation will be discussed indicate that it may be a radical change in the way capital and the presence of foreign companies in Cuba is conceived.
