Havana risks seeing its historic city centre reduced to ‘a void’

Havana is beguiling from a distance, especially its old colonial buildings bathed in tropical sunshine. But up close this city is crumbling. Number 69 on the Malecon, the city’s long seafront, looks particularly perilous. The apartment block has gaping holes where chunks of brick and plaster have fallen away. Bare metal rods protrude where balconies used to be.

“Look how badly these columns have deteriorated,” says Olga Torriente, pointing to thick cracks in the external wall of her flat, up on the top floor.

She pulls her bed into the centre of the room in a storm, afraid the whole wall could come crashing down.  Big chunks have already fallen off this building on the Malecon Some of Olga’s neighbours – those judged priority cases – have been rehoused. Others joined a “microbrigada”, or construction team, almost three years ago to help build a replacement apartment block for themselves. But there is still no completion date, and no alternative.

“How long will we have to wait? We need to get out,” says Ms Torriente. “People ask me if I’m not afraid to live here. Of course I’m afraid, but this is my house so where can I go?”

Like Ms Torriente, most Cubans own the house they live in – one of the principles of the revolution. But many have lacked the funds to maintain them.

Adding to Cuba’s difficulties, some 200,000 families across the island were left homeless by devastating hurricanes in 2008.

“Buildings are crumbling because they’re old. Then there’s the salt spray, humidity, termites, hurricanes and overcrowding. There are many kinds of problems and sometimes altogether,” explains former city architect Mario Coyula.

Seven out of every 10 houses need major repairs, according to official statistics. Some 7% of housing in Havana has formally been declared uninhabitable. The province around the capital needs some 300,000 more properties.   The shortage has forced expanding families to build lofts and new partitions within their homes, putting weakened structures under additional strain.

“It’s difficult, because neither the government nor the people have the money to care for the buildings. In a way, we inherited a city we are not able to keep,” Mr Coyula says, referring to Havana’s once grand colonial-era architecture in particular.

But the government is now trying to stop the rot – literally. For decades, Cuba subsidised all construction materials, but production slumped when state budgets became strained. Finding materials was difficult and an expensive black market emerged. There were also tight restrictions on building work.

Now, Cuba has shifted tack. It is allowing builders yards to sell materials at market prices, while offering state funds to help those home owners in most need. Hurricane victims are a priority but anyone on a low income and in what is considered “vulnerable” housing can apply.

“We used to subsidise materials now we’re subsidising the individual,” says Marbelis Velazquez, from Havana’s provincial housing office. “Not everyone is in the same situation, economically and the state clearly has to help those most in need,” she says.

The new grants range from 5,000 Cuban pesos ($208) for minor repairs to a maximum 80,000 pesos ($3,333) to build a 25 sq metre room from scratch.

In Cerro, one of central Havana’s most run-down districts, the Padro family is hoping their own petition will be accepted. Nadia Padro’s parents built a basic wooden and brick shack in their garden when living there with six siblings and assorted partners and grandchildren became too crowded. There is a kitchen, with water and electricity. But the roof leaks when it rains and Nadia and her husband have to squeeze into one bed at night alongside their two young children. “A government grant would really improve things,” Nadia says, explaining that they want to build a separate room for their daughters. Neither she nor her husband has a steady job and could never afford the work on their own.

The government plans to fund the grants with the sales tax it collects from state-owned building yards. It has already increased production and after years of bare forecourts, the yards are filling up with materials for sale.

“Before you had to hunt for things through friends or contacts,” Hernan Mayor explains, as he loads roofing material onto the back of his bike at The Wonder builders yard. He has been saving money to build a small extension to his house. “The materials are all here legally now, which is better. If things were a bit cheaper, it would be perfect. But at least they’re available now,” he says.

Nadia Padro is hoping to get a government grant to build another room in her shack New regulations have also made it much faster – and simpler – to get a licence for new building work. And, for the first time, bank credit is becoming available.

So Cuba is creeping into action over its housing stock. But the delay has already cost dearly. In Havana alone, it is said that three houses collapse either partially or completely every single day.

As for the city’s heritage, beyond the carefully restored “hub” of Old Havana, much of that may already have been lost for good. “It’s impossible to preserve all the buildings, I know many will go,” says s architect Mario Coyula. “If nothing changes, Havana may end like a circle…with a void in the middle where the city used to be.”

Havana, April 2012, Photos by Arch Ritter

* Potential new partners wait for answers

* Existing ventures under scrutiny

Camilo Cienfuegos Refinery

By Marc Frank

HAVANA, May 15 (Reuters) – Cuba’s reform plans to attract more overseas investment are off to a slow start as the government focuses more on regulating existing foreign joint ventures than encouraging new ones, businessmen and diplomats say.

In fact, Cuba has closed more joint ventures than it has opened since the ruling Communist Party adopted wide-ranging economic reforms a year ago, and remains far off highs reached in the 1990s, according to official reports.

The list of endangered or terminated joint ventures includes one big name, Unilever PLC, the Anglo-Dutch consumer giant, and a number of others that have operated in the country for 15 years or more.

Cuba’s investment reform plan announced last year spoke positively of foreign investment, promised a review of the cumbersome approval process and stated that special economic zones, joint venture golf courses, marinas and new manufacturing projects were planned.

Most experts believe large flows of direct investment will be needed for development and to create jobs if the government follows through with plans to lay off up to a million workers in an attempt to lift the country out of its economic malaise.

It will be particularly critical given the health of cancer-stricken ally Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who has championed close cooperation between Cuba and oil-rich Venezuela.

While the reform plan built up hopes of an opening to foreign capital, it also made clear that existing and future investments would be subject to “rigorous controls” on “regulations and procedures, as well as the commitments assumed by foreign partners.” This part of the program has been vigorously carried out, according to both business and Cuban sources, with a review of the country’s approximately 240 foreign investment projects recently concluded.

That number is a decline from the 258 projects Foreign Trade and Investment Minister Rodrigo Malmierca reported at the close of 2009 and way down from the 700 Cuba had a decade ago.

The issue in part appears to be the result of old ideological habits dying hard, said Geoff Thale, program director at the Washington Office on Latin America.

Other reforms, such as encouraging more self employment and private farming, have been easier to implement.

“From the point of view of the state, an opening to foreign investment seems like a much bigger step to take in changing the economic model than does the liberalizing of domestic agriculture or current opening to small business,” Thale said.

VENTURES CLOSE

Unilever PLC, the Anglo-Dutch consumer giant, is the latest and best known of the foreign firms to pack its bags.

The company’s 15-year, 50-50 economic association has expired and a dispute over the controlling interest in a new venture could not be resolved.

“We wanted 51 percent of the new venture and so did the Cubans. At this point we are leaving, even though some discussion is still going on,” a company manager said, requesting anonymity.

Israeli investors, operating out of the Panama-based BM Group, recently pulled out of their longstanding juice processing business after new contract negotiations broke down, according to the business sources.

Investors in Havana’s container terminal are leaving as Cuba prepares to open a new terminal at Mariel, diplomats said.

Several ventures controlled by two Canadian trading firms and British investment fund Coral Capital under investigation for alleged corrupt practices are in the process of liquidation. Th e ir offices were closed last year and their top executives arrested as part of the crackdown on corruption.

SOCIALIST INVESTMENT

Following the election in Venezuela in 1998 of president Hugo Chavez, an avowed socialist, Cuba turned away from encouraging private investment in favor of state-funded cooperation with its new oil-producing ally.

Venezuela has since become Cuba’s biggest economic partner, with some 50 joint ventures signed over the last 10 years, although many are still only on the drawing board.

Cuba depends on Venezuelan oil to meet its domestic energy needs and Chavez’s uncertain future makes it more imperative that the Cuban government pick up the pace if it wants more foreign investment, said a western diplomat.

“The Cubans may be allergic to foreign investment, but the clock is ticking, and concessions on this front are inevitable,” the diplomat said.

“Instead, they are going over existing companies with a fine-tooth comb. It is hard to understand. Perhaps they are waiting for oil to be discovered offshore,” she said.

Other investment projects remain up in the air. A dozen golf course projects report no progress despite government promises to sign off after years of negotiations, as do companies negotiating ventures with the sugar industry since 2006.

Billion dollar plans to expand refineries and build a petrochemical complex around a refinery in central Cienfuegos, announced years ago, have yet to be signed off on.

On the other hand, in perhaps the most promising joint venture in decades, offshore oil exploration began in earnest this year with foreign partners planning at least three wells drilled by a massive, Chinese-built rig now parked 20 miles off the coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

Camilo Cienfuegos Refinery

$900 Million Brazil-financed Port Development at Mariel

From the Inter-Americanj Dialogue’s “Latin America Adviser” comes some interesting comments on the feasibility of shifting half of Cuba’s economy as measured by GDP to the non-state sector. The analysts are undoubtedly correct in arguing that the conditions are not yet in placed to permit an expansion of the private sector so as to constitute 50% of the economy.

However, as a statement of intention, Hernández comment is interesting. This objective may provide the impetus for intensifying the reform process in order to permit the expansion of the non-state sector to occur.

The original is located here: Inter-American Dialogue, Latin America Adviser, May 11, 2012

 Question:

Cuba wants to move nearly half of its economy to the “non-state” sector within the next five years, Communist Party official Lazo Hernández said last month in a speech in Havana. Currently, government-run businesses account for 95 percent of the island’s GDP, said  Hernández. Is the plan to move almost half of the country’s economy to private businesses realistic? Can the country’s tiny private sector absorb such an effort? Would such a move strengthen Cuba’s economy?

 Answers:

José Azel, senior scholar at the Institute for Cuban and Cuban- American Studies at the University of Miami:

“Lazo Hernández announced that the country is seeking to transform its economy by increasing the economic participation of the ‘non-state’ sector tenfold. To accomplish this, the government is relying on its Draft Guidelines for Economic and Social Policy. This document proposes to chart Cuba’s economic future and states paradoxically that ‘central planning and not the market will be supreme in the actualization of the economic model.’ The centerpiece of this plan revolves around firing as many as a million state employees (20 percent of the workforce) who could then solicit licenses to become self-employed as ‘cuentapropistas‘ in precisely 181 specified trades.

Moreover, the guidelines insist that prices will be set according to the dictates of central planning and the plan will insure that any new ‘non-state’ economic activities (apparently the term ‘private sector’ is not to be spoken) do not lead to the accumulation of wealth. To fully appreciate the economic surrealism of the Cuban ‘reforms,’ it is useful to examine a handful of the 181 trades and activities that are authorized for self-employment and which are foreseen as becoming 50 percent of the country’s economic activity. These include: trimming palm trees, cleaning spark plugs, refilling disposable cigarette lighters, mattress repair, wrapping buttons with fabric, umbrella repair and natural fruit peeling. This bizarre list of permitted private service sector activities will not drive the economic development of the country. Cuba’s GDP today is made up primarily by tourism, the services of doctors abroad, nickel and a handful of agricultural exports. Hernández’s stated goal seems mathematically impossible given a private sector permitted only in subsistence-level activities. An impediment to real reforms is simply that without inspired democratic leadership, the set of long-held Marxist economic assumptions will not be swapped for another set of economic beliefs. These are not reforms to unleash the market’s ‘invisible hand,’ but rather to reaffirm the Castros’ clinched fist.”

Lorenzo Perez, member of the Association for the Study of the Cuban Economy and former deputy director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department at the IMF:

“An expansion of Cuba’s private sector will certainly strengthen the economy. The realism of moving half of the economy to the private sector over a five-year period will depend on the measures taken to attain this goal. While positive steps have been taken in recent months, the measures up to now have been too timid or contradictory to attain this goal. A significant expansion of the private sector would require the opening of most sectors of the economy to private initiatives, respect for private property and the rule of law, freedom for markets to operate and the establishment of a sustainable macroeconomic framework. The activities opened to the private sector are too few (some 200 activities) and continue to limit most private professional activities, thereby negating possible benefits from the country’s well-educated labor force. Insufficient institutional arrangements have been adopted to establish clear property rights and promote the creation of private companies. For example, land distributed to farmers has only been leased, while the creation of companies with unlimited capacity to hire labor is not envisaged. Markets are not operating freely; a substantial amount of food production has to be sold to the state at fixed prices, the private sector cannot carry out most foreign trade activities and a heavy tax burden discourages private investment and hiring. A sustainable macroeconomic framework does not exist with public finances and the balance of payments depends on politically motivated financial relations with Venezuela. No effective measures have been taken to restructure the external debt with most industrialized countries, including negotiations with the United States to settle political differences. As a result, Cuba continues to be isolated from the international economy and organizations.”

Carmelo Mesa-Lago, distinguished professor emeritus of economics and Latin American studies at the University of Pittsburgh:

“The plan to generate half of GDP from the non-state sector requires that 1.8 million workers are transferred from the state sector by 2014, tantamount to 35 percent of the labor force. In 2006-2010, the non-state sector shrank. Under Raúl’s reforms, the government dismissed only 140,000 unneeded state workers in 2011 (14 percent of the target). In that year, there were 357,000 self-employed people (7 percent of the labor force) out of which 209,600 were new and only 17 percent had been unemployed. In addition, from 2009 to 2011, 147,000 agricultural producers were granted usufruct contracts in unused state land (2.9 percent of the labor force), but much less in 2011 alone. Finally 1,500 cooperatives in production and services were created in 2011; the number of members has not been released but assuming 4 members per coop there would be 6,000 (0.1 percent). In summary, perhaps 300,000 jobs in the non-state sector were created in 2011 (5.8 percent of the labor force), which means that 1.5 million non-state jobs must be created in the next three years to reach the 1.8 million target, at an annual average of 500,000. That is impossible at last year’s growth rate. Thus, the structural reforms must be accelerated and deepened, for example, through significant tax cuts in the non-state sector, an expansion of self-employment to university graduates and the elimination of bureaucratic impediments. If this were the case and the targets of state worker dismissals and non-state job creation were met, then the economy would probably be strengthened. The state would save a lot on wages and the private sector, which has proven to be more efficient than the state sector, should increase production and productivity. But a lot of ‘ifs’ must materialize.”

Uva de Aragón, associate director of the Cuban Research Institute at Florida International University:

“It isn’t an easy goal, but it could be attainable if there is: 1) a change of mentality  and acceptance that actors in the nonstate economic sector have a right to profits, and that the creation of a middle class would be healthy for the country; 2) a transparent legal framework; 3) a tax code based on profits, with a moratorium of at least two years for new businesses; 4) expansion of the areas in which the non-estate sector can grow; 5) reduction and eventual elimination of bureaucratic red tape; 6) access to tools and raw materials, in a timely manner and at reduced costs; 7) sustainable markets, which will require among other things higher salaries and pensions for remaining state employees and retirees,  respectively; significant advance in technology; 9) training of Cubans in businesses practices; 10) restructuring of monetary policies (the disparity between salaries in Cuban pesos and cost of products in convertible pesos cannot be maintained) and 11) capital. Where will the capital come from? Can a climate of stability be created to entice foreign investors? Will they allow Cubans in the diaspora to invest, even if only as partners with their relatives and friends? As changes take place, can the state continue to provide a safety net—education, healthcare, social services— for most Cubans? The changes needed are so deep they cannot be done too quickly; but a slow pace is as dangerous. Will Cuba find the needed steady rhythm to transform itself? I personally hope it does.”

José Azel, Uva de Aragon, Carmelo Mesa-Lago and Lorenzo Peréz

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA May 2 (Reuters) – When Ojacy Curbello and her husband opened a restaurant at their home in Havana in late December, not a single customer showed up.

It was a disheartening debut for Bollywood, the first Indian restaurant in the Cuban capital. Curbello worried that their dream of cashing in on recent reforms in this Communist-run country would collapse.

The next day customers began trickling in. As word spread, the trickle became a flood. Many nights the couple had to turn people away or serve them at the family dining table and call in extra help. Today they are planning to increase the 22-seat capacity by expanding their 1950s home and putting tables and a bar in what is now their bedroom.

“It has been amazing how quickly it has taken off,” said Curbello, still looking slightly stunned. She sat with her husband, Cedric Fernandez, a Londoner of Sri Lankan descent, in the main dining area, hung with prints of Indian figures.

Bollywood’s story is an example of how life is slowly changing in Cuba since President Raul Castro launched a string of limited economic reforms in 2010.

Continue reading Here: Mark Frank SPECIAL REPORT Cuba’s little capitalists are ready to rumba

For Cuban journalist and blogger Luis Felipe Rojas, posting an entry on his blog Crossing the Wire Fences or even sending an email is a daunting task.

Every time he wants to access the internet, he has to leave his house in the early hours of the morning and travel 200 kilometres from his hometown of Holguín, in eastern Cuba, to the closest cybercafé. If he is lucky, and he is not stopped at a police checkpoint on the way, he will get to a computer in about three hours.

Once there, Luis Felipe has to show ID to buy an access card and pay six US dollars to use the internet for sixty minutes – that is almost a third of a monthly local salary.

Some days he finds websites containing information considered critical of the government are blocked or messages have disappeared from his inbox.

Internet access is so highly controlled in Cuba that critics of the government have come up with creative ways to ensure their stories get out.

Sometimes that involves converting articles into digital images and sending them via SMS to a contact outside of Cuba, to type and post on Luis Felipe’s blog. He also uses text messages for posting on Twitter but the lack of internet access means that he cannot see what others say to (or about) him.

Luis Felipe is part of a growing group of journalists and government critics who are finding new ways to by-pass state control in order to disseminate information about human rights abuses taking place in Cuba.

According to a recent report by Amnesty International, independent journalists and bloggers have faced increased threats and intimidation when publishing information critical to the authorities.

The ‘Hablemos Press’ Information Centre, an unofficial news agency monitoring human rights abuses across Cuba, recently reported that from March 2011 to March 2012 inclusively, more than 75 independent journalists have been detained, some, like Caridad Caballero Batista up to 20 times.

“After the mass release of prisoners of conscience in 2011, we have seen authorities sharpening their strategy to silence dissent by harassing government critics and independent journalists with short term detentions and public acts of repudiation,” said Gerardo Ducos, Cuba expert with Amnesty International.

On 25 March, Luis Felipe was detained in a local police station for five days in order to prevent him from travelling to attend an open-air mass celebrated by Pope Benedict XVI.

“The authorities attack us because we talk about the issues people face – that not everybody has enough food, that public services do not always work, that there are problems with the health service,” Luis Felipe said to Amesty International.

“I have been scared many times. Scared of going to the street, of being beaten up, of being locked up for a long time and not seeing my children. But fear does not stop me. I do not think a tweet from me is going to save anybody from prison but it does save them from impunity.”

After 50 years, Cubans hope to travel freely

BYLINE: By PAUL HAVEN, Associated Press

DATELINE: HAVANA

After controlling the comings and goings of its people for five decades, communist Cuba appears on the verge of a momentous decision to lift many travel restrictions. One senior official says a “radical and profound” change is weeks away.

The comment by Parliament Chief Ricardo Alarcon has residents, exiles and policymakers abuzz with speculation that the much-hated exit visa could be a thing of the past, even if Raul Castro’s government continues to limit the travel of doctors, scientists, military personnel and others in sensitive roles to prevent a brain drain.

Other top Cuban officials have cautioned against over-excitement, leaving islanders and Cuba experts to wonder how far Havana’s leaders are willing to go.

In the past 18 months, Castro has removed prohibitions on some private enterprise, legalized real estate and car sales, and allowed compatriots to hire employees, ideas that were long anathema to the government’s Marxist underpinnings.

Scrapping travel controls could be an even bigger step, at least symbolically, and carries enormous economic, social and political risk.

Even half measures such as ending limits on how long Cubans can live abroad or cutting the staggeringly high fees for the exit visa that Cubans must obtain just to leave the country would be significant.

“It would be a big step forward,” said Philip Peters, a Cuba expert at the Virginia-based Lexington Institute. “If Cuba ends the restrictions on its own citizens’ travel, that means the only travel restrictions that would remain in place would be those the United States imposes on its citizens.”

The move would open the door to increased emigration and make it easier for Cubans overseas to avoid forfeiting their residency rights, a fate that has befallen waves of exiles since the 1959 revolution.

It could also bolster the number of Cubans who travel abroad for work, increasing earnings sent home in the short term and, ultimately, investment by a new moneyed class.

Scrapping exit controls should win Cuba support in Europe, which improved ties after dozens of political prisoners were freed in 2010.

But Peters and several other analysts said they doubt the new rules would bring about any immediate shift in U.S. policy toward Cuba, which includes a ban on American tourism. Those restrictions are entrenched and enjoy the backing of powerful Cuban American exiles.

“I don’t think it would lead to a drastic change in U.S. policy, but an accumulation of human rights improvements could lead to an incremental change,”

Peters said.

Cuba-born Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Florida, said any discussion about immigration reform on the island is a peripheral issue.

“The kind of changes I’m interested in are not about immigration,” said Ros-Lehtinen, who heads the House Committee on Foreign Affairs. “I’m interested in changes that affect fundamental freedom, democracy and respect for human rights.”

U.S. officials said they have been watching for an announcement for months, noting there has been such talk as far back as August. But nothing has happened, and they are skeptical that the Castro regime is truly committed to such reform.

Asked about possible reciprocal measures, one U.S. official said the Obama administration can’t promise anything because it doesn’t know what exactly Cuba plans to announce. The official wasn’t authorized to speak publicly and demanded anonymity.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the U.S. “would certainly welcome greater freedom of movement for the Cuban public.”

Rumors of the exit visa’s imminent demise have circulated on and off for years.

The whispers became open chatter last spring after the Communist Party endorsed migration reform at a crucial gathering. But Castro dashed those hopes in December, saying the timing wasn’t right and the “fate of the revolution” was at stake.

Alarcon’s comments, made in an interview published in April, revived hopes that a bold move is coming.

“One of the questions that we are currently discussing at the highest level of the government is the question of emigration,” he told a French journalist. “We are working toward a radical and profound reform of emigration that in the months to come will eliminate this kind of restriction.”

But on Saturday, Vice Foreign Minister Dagoberto Rodriguez told exiles not to set their hopes too high, vowing the government would maintain some travel controls as long as it faced a threat from enemies in Washington.

Havana residents say they are anxiously waiting to see what the government does.

“The time has come to get rid of the exit visa,” said Vivian Delgado, a shop worker. “It’s absurd that as a Cuban I must get permission to leave my country, and even worse that I need permission to come back.”

Added Domingo Blanco, a 24-year-old state office worker: “It’s as if one needed to ask to leave one’s own house.”

Many Cubans are reluctant to talk about their own experience with the exit visa.

One woman named Miru, who has been trying to leave Cuba since 2006, shared her story on the condition her full name not be used for fear that speaking with a foreign journalist could land her in trouble.

“This has been a very long process,” she said of her odyssey, which began when her husband defected from a medical mission in Africa and sought asylum in the U.S.

First, she had to get a letter releasing her from her job at a government ministry a process that took five years. Only then could she apply for the exit visa. That was three months ago, and Miru still hasn’t received an answer.

Officials say her case is complicated but won’t give a specific reason for the delay.

“I am very anxious to see my husband again,” she said.

The exit controls are a Cold War legacy of Cuba’s alliance with the Soviet Union. They were instituted in December 1961 to fight brain drain as hundreds of thousands of doctors and other professionals fled, many for new lives in Florida. That was three months before the U.S. embargo barring most trade with the island went into full effect.

Over the years, it has become much easier for Cubans to obtain permission to travel, though many are still denied, and it is particularly hard to take children out of the country.

Also, the exit visa’s $150 price tag is a small fortune in a country where salaries average about $20 a month. In addition, the person the traveler wishes to visit must pay $200 at a Cuban consulate.

Those who leave get only a 30-day pass, and the cost of an extension varies by country. In the U.S., the fee is $130 a month. Those who stay abroad more than

11 months lose the right to reside in Cuba. Before 2011, any property would automatically go to the state.

“The Cuban government has monetized every part of the humiliating process of coming and going,” said Ann Louise Bardach, a longtime Cuba expert and author of “Without Fidel: A Death Foretold in Miami, Havana and Washington.” “Getting out means running a gantlet, and it is all based on how much humiliation you can endure, and by the time they end up in Miami, people are filled with hate and dreams of revenge.”

Cuban officials have long portrayed the measures as necessary to counter Washington’s meddling. They accuse the U.S. of trying to lure away doctors by letting them walk into any American consulate and request asylum.

Cuban officials say even ordinary islanders are encouraged to leave by U.S.

regulations that automatically grant asylum to any who reach American shores, a policy Cuba says has encouraged thousands to attempt the dangerous trip on leaky boats and makeshift rafts across the Florida Straits.

It’s not clear how emigration reform will affect dissidents, who are routinely denied permission to leave and could still find themselves on some form of no-exit list.

In a recent New York Times opinion piece, dissident blogger Yoani Sanchez called the exit controls “our own Berlin Wall without the concrete … a wall made of paperwork and stamps, overseen by the grim stares of soldiers.” She has been denied travel papers at least 19 times by her own count.

Some hardliners in Florida predict any change will be merely a sleight of hand designed to export malcontents, ease a severe housing shortage and fob off legions of superfluous state workers.

But for hundreds of thousands of Cubans like Miru, the exit visa is a personal matter, not political. After six years separated from her husband, she clings to hope that she will finally obtain permission or benefit from a change in the law.

“I have followed all the rules of my country,” she said. “I’ll be so happy to leave.”

Associated Press writers Andrea Rodriguez and Peter Orsi in Havana, Laura Wides-Munoz in Miami, and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report.

Follow Paul Haven on Twitter: www.twitter.com/paulhaven

By Marc Frank

HAVANA (Reuters) – Cuba will move nearly 50 percent of the state’s economic activity to the “non-state” sector, a senior Communist party official said at the weekend, the latest signal the island is headed toward a mixed economy.

Cuban President Raul Castro has hammered away at the need for the state to become more efficient and get out of secondary economic activity such as farming and retail services since taking over for his ailing older brother, Fidel, in 2008.

China and Vietnam adopted similar measures in the last few decades of the 20th century as they began to shift to what is known as market socialism.

“Today, almost 95 percent of gross domestic product is produced by the state. Within four or five years between 40 percent and 45 percent will result from different forms of non-state production,” a long-time Communist party political bureau member, Esteban Lazo Hernandez, said in a speech to the Havana city government.

Lazo, who is considered by many to be the Communist party’s top ideologue, said the increased private business and the tax revenue the move would generate meant local government needed to improve its efficiency in order to cope with the shift, according to clips of his speech broadcast by state-run television on Sunday.

The Cuban Communist party approved a comprehensive plan to revamp its Soviet-style command economy in April of last year.

The 311-point document calls on authorities to support and encourage, “mixed-capital companies, cooperatives, farmers with the right to use idle land, landlords of rental properties, self-employed workers and other forms that contribute to raise the efficiency of social labor.”

The plans envision the reduction of the state workforce by at least 20 percent, or a million workers, the elimination of subsidies in favor of more narrowly targeted welfare programs and granting state-run companies more autonomy.

“The question will be to see how this ‘non-state’ production will be split between real private property and cooperatives, and how independent from the state the cooperatives really are,” a Western diplomat said.

Since Castro took office the number of self-employed, often a euphemism for small businesses, has doubled to more than 300,000, and some 200,000 people have taken advantage of a land grant program to encourage small farming.

Small state retail services – from barber shops and beauty parlors to taxis and tiny cafeterias – have already been leased to employees. But local economists said a major shift to the “non-state” sector, like the one outlined by Lazo over the weekend, meant larger chunks of the state’s economic activity would be peeled off.

“Such a shift means not just tiny mom-and-pop operations and small businesses such as restaurants and hostels, but mid-sized companies operating as cooperatives and individually owned,” said a local economist who asked his name not be used.

Skeptics question how quickly Cuba’s centrally planned economy can manage such a radical transformation. “I think a shift of this magnitude in such a short time period would be highly unlikely for Cuba,” said William Messina, agricultural economist with the Food and Resource Economics Department at the University of Florida.

“Even though Raul is trying to implement a number of changes that could move the country in this direction, the bureaucratic resistance that there appears to be (at least within agriculture) will certainly slow the process,” he added.

(Editing by David Adams and Leslie Adler)

At the main entrance to the Calixto Garcia Hospital in Havana there still stands a large billboard that reads:

“Vale, pero millones de veces mas, la vida de un solo ser humano que todas las propiedades del hombre mas rico de la tierra.”

“The life of one single human being is worth millions of times more than all the wealth of the richest man in the world.” (Author’s translation)

The statement is a quotation attributed to Ernesto Guevara. The billboard has gone through various versions and was there at least as far back as when I saw it in 1995.

At first glance – or even after many years’ worth of glances – this may seem like a noble sentiment, poetically expressed. One is drawn into some sort of warm worshipful respect for such deep thought and for its author. Perhaps he is merely saying that a human life is worth a whole lot, which is undeniable. Perhaps this is just a poetic (and pre-numerate?) exaggeration in the manner in which the Bible says that Methusalah lived for a thousand years or Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines.

However, if words are to have meaning and if one thinks about it for a minute, this assertion appears more like foolishness than wisdom. Indeed from the perspective of economic logic or “applied common sense” it is absurd.

The richest man in the world was John D. Rockefeller, whose peak wealth was $318.3 billion (based on 2007 US dollars). If the life of a single human being was one million times larger, it would be valued at $318.3 Trillion. In comparison, the GDP of the US in 2007 was $13.9 Trillion (World Bank, World Development indicators 2009,  p.209) while that of Cuba in 2010 was 64.3 Billion in Moneda Nacional (ONE Anuario Estadistica Cubana 2011, Table 5.17).  Obviously if one person’s life was worth the Che Guevara number and medical investment in that single individual merited that amount of resources, then the resources available for everyone else in both the United States and Cuba would be zero.

In fact nobody’s life is worth an infinity of real resources. My own Father’s life was not judged to be worth an investment of some $5,000.00 by the Ontario medical system at the Kingston General Hospital. When he arrived at the Emergency Ward in 1989, taken there by a Medical Doctor namely my brother, it was judged by the staff that he was too old at age 82 for the more expensive treatment of the time and that a lesser treatment only was appropriate. This undoubtedly cut short his life but by how much I do not know. In my view, $5,000.00 was not a reasonable valuation of his life. But neither would have been $318.3 Trillion.

In actual fact, Cuba has used the scarce resources available for its health services “economically” and wisely. It has managed to squeeze good health results from relatively modest budgets.

Cuba has dropped numerous other economic absurdities promoted by “Che”. This includes the “New Man” approach to the mobilization of human energies and the “budgetary system of finance” (which abolished accounting and financial independence at the level of the enterprise and attempted to run the economy if it was one huge bureaucracy in which there was no knowledge of the value of what was produced nor of the costs of production.)

Perhaps it is time to reconsider all Che’s pronouncements with a critical mind.

See also The Marketing of “Che” Guevara: A Review of “Che’s Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image”, by Michael Casey

(A subsequent Blog entry will outline “Che’s Top Ten Economic Absurdities”.)

Following last weekend’s Summit of the Americas in Cartagena, Colombia, Prime Minister Stephen Harper needs to seriously reassess his position on Cuba (which was not officially invited to the inter-American gathering) and re-set the Canadian-Latin American relationship.

Indeed, we can’t on the one hand criticize the U.S. government for a failed Cuba policy (after 50 years of ineffective economic sanctions) and then side with the Americans on excluding Havana from the Americas Summit process. Additionally, we should not forget that Cuba punches well above its weight within the wider region.

Notwithstanding recent comments by former Cuban President Fidel Castro, who castigated Harper for environmental damage caused by Alberta’s oilsands and Canadian mining companies for exploiting struggling communities in many Latin American countries, the Canadian government should seek to strengthen its relationship with Havana. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs (and Consular Services), Diane Ablonczy, has already done some important work in this area. She has properly recognized that there exist huge opportunities where both Canada and Cuba can work constructively together on a wide range of issue areas, including trade, tourism, energy and people-to-people contacts.

The next step is for Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird to undertake an official visit to Havana in the coming months. That, of course, would set the stage for a prime ministerial visit to Cuba — or a visit by a senior-ranking Cuban government official (Raul Castro?) to Ottawa in the near term.

But as former prime minister Jean Chrétien found out during his own April 1998 visit to Cuba, it makes no sense to press the Cubans hard on the human rights front or to attach certain conditions to a continued warming in bilateral relations. Yes, we should raise the issue of democratization and respect for political rights and freedoms, but if we hope to influence them here we should do so in a respectful and non-accusatory manner (and without preconditions).

Canada could also earn some diplomatic credit with its Cuban friends (and build stronger linkages with the Argentines, Brazilians and Mexicans) by pushing U.S. President Barack Obama on an anti-Cuba bill passed by the Florida state legislature in March. Harper should firmly ask Obama if there is any way that this counterproductive bill can be quashed. The offending legislation was sponsored by Miami Republican lawmakers determined to punish the Cubans by restricting state and local governments from signing procurement contracts with any companies that do business with Cuba and Syria. Both countries still remain on the U.S. State Department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism.

The point here is not only to prevent Florida taxpayers from supporting companies that have commercial relations with Havana, but to compel those same companies from operating and investing in Cuba. In a word: it’s about “internationalizing” the U.S. economic embargo against Cuba — which has always been seen in Washington as the key instrument for removing the Castros from power.

Clearly, if this bill is signed into law by Florida Governor Rick Scott, it could have negative repercussions for Canadian companies bidding on contracts in the sunshine state.

But the constitutionality of such a bill is seriously in doubt, since only the federal government (and Congress) in Washington has the legislative competence to conduct foreign policy (and impose sanctions). And it is well-established that state and local governments are constitutionally prohibited from setting policy that conflicts with federal law-making responsibilities. A similar law in Massachusetts — which sought to limit state businesses from dealing with companies inking commercial deals with rights-abusing Burma — was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000.

Canada could enhance its position and prestige in the hemisphere by standing up to the Americans on Cuba. Accordingly, it should seek Cuba’s presence at the next Americas summit, should there be one.

While most of what Fidel Castro said in early April can be ignored, he was right about highlighting the constructive engagement approach of former Canadian prime ministers Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chrétien toward Cuba. Indeed, we need to jettison ideologically tinged rhetoric and focus on positive interaction, co-operative dialogue and commercial exchange.

To be sure, one of the keys to Canada opening up the door to wider and deeper relations with the Americas has to involve Cuba. Taking up the question of Cuba’s importance in the region is a good place for Stephen Harper to begin.

Peter McKenna is professor of political science at the University of Prince Edward Island and the editor of the forthcoming book, Canada Looks South: In Search of an America’s Strategy.

Complete Original Here: Armando Nova,  Cuban agriculture and the current economic transformation process 2012  in Cuba Study Group WWW.FROMTHEISLAND.ORG INTRODUCTION

The Cuban economy has begun an interesting and important process of economic transformation, which has been identified as: the “Updating of the economic model.” It covers all economic sectors, with important implications for economic, social and political sectors of the nation. These changes have been reflected in the Guidelines of the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution, adopted during the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party Congress held in April 2011 and ratified at the recent Conference of the CPC held in February of this year.

We must keep in mind that the Guidelines are only a guide and that the implementation process itself will lead to updates, enhancements and introduction of new issues and measures, which will be recom­mend by practice itself.

One may note that the most profound and important transformations have been initiated in a sector that is economically vital and strategic for the Cuban economy, as is the agricultural sector (AS). At the same time, it implies recognition and restitution of the important role of this sector in the economic-social-political development.

The insufficient domestic food production (see Nova 2010), is an issue that has been prevalent during the last fifty years in the national economy, increasing the country’s dependence on foreign food, making it more vulnerable and resulting in high expenditure of foreign currency for food imports (see Table 1), when most of these could be produced domestically under competitive conditions.

The Current Issue of the agricultural sector could be summarized as follows: agricultural and livestock pro­duction is down, there are records of significant quantities of idle agricultural land, and food imports continue to grow, to cover the shortfall in domestic production. This leads to obvious signs that the productive forces are still frozen and the need to transform systemically production relationships, and to the need to analyze how to solve the issue of ownership of the land and the changes needed to achieve it2.

The current situation of dependency in the area of food products is paradoxical, given the fact that the agricultural sector (AS) shows a significant number of unused areas (more than 2.0 million of idle Has). Results obtained from various scientific and technical institu­tions, indicate that there is a material basis (although undercapitalized largely by years of economic crisis, but it exists and can be improved and used) and has a significant human

WHAT ARE THE FACTORS THAT HAVE A NEGATIVE INFLUENCE?

Sometimes the reduction in agricultural and livestock production is attributed to the effects caused by drought, and to some extent this is a contributing factor, but this is a variable that must always be kept in mind instead of waiting for this to happen. It is necessary to prepare early for this effect and reduce the current vulnerability

This requires creating the necessary food reserves during the spring or rain period. This retranslates in the production of grains (corn, soy­bean, sunflower), in dry periods and throughout the year, and in the rescue of sugar cane production, not only destined for the production of sugar, but to the production of a number of side products such as molasses, yeast, bagasse, etc. used as animal feed. There is a need to rescue the necessary integration of the agro-industry and sugar cane production for food destined for cattle and pigs feed. Should also include the production of sugar cane used for livestock feed and forage base.

However, the most important aspect is the delay in implementing reforms in the agricultural sector, formal­ized in the Economic and Social Guidelines adopted at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba (CPC) and the systematic failure to apply them.

1. Delay in delivery of land to farmers under the framework of Decree Law 259 and its regulations (primar­ily bureaucratic aspects).

2. An insufficient offer of supplies, insufficient means of labor and production, with high prices (recent mea­sures have been taken recently aimed at reducing prices) and not adjusted to the demands, requirements, quality and specifications of producers and regions, usually modular. Not taking into account the actual existence of the market objective and role.

3. Need to amend Decree Law 259, to eliminate the uncertainties that it contains and which do not favor the permanence of the producer.

4. The failure to implement comprehensive measures for the decentralization of the marketing and elimina­tion of the Government inventory system.

5. The issue of prices paid to producers that are not satisfactory (despite the price increases in some cat­egories), particularly those products that replace imports, while willing to pay high prices for imported products and not to the local producer.

6. Late delivery of loans and technical assistance.

In summary reaffirmed by the results achieved at the end of 2011, there are still three aspects that have not been settled:

• Limited rights of the owner of the property: the producers should be allowed to make their own decisions throughout the cycle production-distribution-consumption-change.

• Failure to recognize the real and objective existence of the market and its complementary role with planning.

• Lack of systemic approach in the design and implementation of measures.

Given this repeated situation it is evident that the productive forces of the agricultural sector are still detained and required to remove the obstacles that still hinder its development, which implies continuing fast as pos­sible the transformation of production relations, which is a strategic economic sector for the Cuban economy.

Armando Nova Gonzalez