The consulting firm Auge has published a report that compiles the opinions of 175 executives from private companies with up to 100 employees
14ymedio, Havana, 13 December 2025 — The recently released First Business Climate Study for Cuban MSMEs*, conducted by the consulting firm Auge, reveals a contrast that sums up the current situation of the private sector on the island. The results of the study were presented on Friday during El Break, a meeting held at Nodo Habana.
According to the study, 76% of the business owners surveyed say they feel optimistic or very optimistic about 2026, while 60% predict that the national economy will be somewhat or much worse next year. The apparent contradiction, described in the report itself as a “marked divergence”, shows the disconnect between the individual performance of small firms and the perception of the economic environment in which they are forced to operate.
The study, the first of its kind to be conducted independently in Cuba, gathers the opinions of 175 executives from private companies with up to 100 employees, most of which have been in operation for more than three years. Auge warns that the selection of interviewees was not random and that the results should be taken as a qualitative approximation rather than a statistical generalisation of the country’s business universe. Even so, the consultancy firm highlights that this initial map offers a valuable perspective on the experiences and concerns of a representative segment of the current MSME fabric.
One of the most striking elements of the analysis is the coexistence of marked optimism about their own performance with a deep mistrust of the country’s future. For the authors, this tension starkly highlights the lack of security in the regulatory and economic environment and explains why, despite the drive of the private sector, investment remains timid and innovation is geared more towards resistance than qualitative leaps. Although most respondents expect to increase their sales and profits in 2026, they are more cautious when it comes to forecasting increases in investment or staffing levels, a sign of the insecurity caused by regulatory volatility and macroeconomic unpredictability.
The consultancy recommends improving legal predictability, enabling transparent mechanisms for access to foreign currency, institutionalising dialogue between private actors and the government, and adopting firm measures to contain inflation.
Among the most optimistic companies are those engaged in information and communications technology, wholesale and retail trade, industrial and agricultural production, and food and accommodation businesses. These are sectors that, despite operating in adverse conditions, maintain a certain dynamism and adaptability.
However, current obstacles continue to erode their room for manoeuvre. This year, the most frequently cited problems were inflation (mentioned by 60 per cent), poor state infrastructure (43.4 per cent) and difficulty accessing foreign currency (38.9 per cent). Concerns for 2026 are growing in intensity, with 68% fearing greater economic instability, 56.6% anticipating new regulations that will further complicate private activity, and 48% expecting an additional increase in costs due to inflation.
The report sees this set of concerns as a map of systemic bottlenecks that are exacerbated by unstable conditions marked by rising tariffs, prolonged blackouts, persistent inflation, and the absence of a formal and stable mechanism for MSMEs to access foreign currency. Entrepreneurs were explicit in identifying what they consider to be the three priority areas for the authorities: ensuring regulatory stability, opening up real and autonomous access to foreign currency, and formally recognising the private sector’s contribution to the national economy. Without tangible progress in these areas, Auge argues, the country will remain trapped in a dynamic of low investment, low productivity and innovation reduced to survival strategies.
MSMEs have become one of the few actors with the capacity to adapt and generate a certain economic dynamism.
Based on the study’s conclusions, the consultancy recommends improving legal predictability, enabling transparent mechanisms for access to foreign currency, institutionalising dialogue between private actors and the government, and adopting firm measures to contain inflation. In Auge’s opinion, any attempt to boost the Cuban economy necessarily involves offering a more stable and less arbitrary framework for the activity of non-state enterprises.
Between 2020 and 2024, the country’s GDP has contracted by 11%, and no growth is expected in the current financial year. Although no official forecast has been released for 2026, there are no signs of a change in the trend. Failed domestic economic policies and the difficulties faced by the regime’s main allies have exacerbated structural problems that are reflected in food, fuel and medicine shortages, daily power cuts, rampant inflation, fiscal deficits, the deterioration of state services, bank decapitalisation, growing dollarisation and unabated mass migration.
In this turbulent landscape, MSMEs have become one of the few actors capable of adapting and generating some economic dynamism. But their optimism contrasts with the increasingly widespread certainty that the country is sliding into sustained decline.
*Translator’s note: Literally, “Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises.” The expectation is that it is also privately managed, but in Cuba this may include owners/managers who are connected to the government.
Translated by GH
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