Experts consulted by EFE see signs of an opening toward the free market in the package
EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, November 3, 2026 / Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the transformations of state enterprises linked to the 176 economic reforms “do not amount to privatization,” after legal backing was given to 97% – 171 – of these measures on the island, state media reported this Monday.
Díaz-Canel stated that “215 legal norms” related to these measures had been put in place in three months and reiterated that “the transformation into commercial companies with shares or stakes” of state enterprises “does not amount to privatization.”
The leader defended state companies against the growing private sector on the island and said that “the socialist state enterprise is not a residual actor or an appendage of the administrative apparatus, but the main subject of the national economy and the fundamental link.”
“We will always protect the state enterprise from privatization,” Díaz-Canel emphasized, stressing that “business ties of different kinds may be created” so that “every state enterprise that can be saved does not have to go bankrupt.”
“Business ties of different kinds may be created” so that “every state enterprise that can be saved does not have to go bankrupt”
The head of state specified that the objective of the 176 economic reforms approved in June “is to separate ownership from management, attract capital and improve efficiency.”
In addition, the measures aim “to make better use of underutilized capacities in the state enterprise, while maintaining social ownership as a non-negotiable principle,” Díaz-Canel added.
The Cuban president made these statements during a meeting with Cuban state business leaders to assess “the first stage of implementation” of these reforms and “the progress of the process in about a dozen business groups from various sectors,” the official newspaper Granma reported on Monday.
According to official data, some 16,100 private companies currently operate in Cuba, following the approval of 3,600 new entities of this type over the last three months as part of the economic reform process.
All the legal scaffolding related to them “can confirm that Cuba is heading toward the free market,” experts say
Independent experts have told EFE that the package of measures positions the private sector as a necessary link and a fundamental pillar in the face of the deep crisis the island is going through and that all the legal scaffolding related to them “can confirm that Cuba is heading toward the free market,” they said.
The measures have come at a time when Cuba has been mired in a deep economic crisis for six years, a situation that has worsened since last January after the US applied a policy of maximum pressure, with an oil blockade and additional sanctions aimed at achieving political and economic changes on the island.
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