Tag Archives: Sixth Party Congress

Cuba’s Economic Problems and Prospects in a Changing Geo-Economic Environment

By Arch Ritter

Below is a Power Point Presentation made at the “Seminar on Prospects for Cuba’s Economy” at the Bildner Center, City University of New York, on May 21, 2012.

The full presentation can be found here: CUNY Bildner Presention, Arch Ritter on Cuba’s Economic Problems and Prospects….”, May 21 2012

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Presentations from the Bildner Center, (CUNY) “COLLOQUIUM ON THE CUBAN ECONOMY” May 2012,

On May 12, The Bildner Center at City University of New York, under the leadership of Mauricio Font organized a one-day conference analyzing the recent experience of the Cuban economy in its process of transformation.  All of the Power Point presentations from the  “COLLOQUIUM ON THE CUBAN ECONOMY” have been posted on the  Center’s Web Site. The presentations of the Cuban participants, all from the Center for the Study of the Cuban Economy, namely Omar Everleny, Pavel Vidal, Camila Piñeiro, and Armando Nova, are especially valuable and informative as they provide up-to-date and inside analyses of major issue areas. Mauricio, Mario González-Corzo, and the team are certainly to be congratulated for organizing this event

All of the presentations can be be accessed at the Bildner Web Site via the hyperlinks listed below in the form of the program of the conference.

Session #1: Cuban Updates on Actualización

1. Cuentapropismo y ajuste estructural
Omar Everleny, University of Havana

2. Microfinanzas en Cuba
Pavel Vidal, University of Havana

3. Non-state Enterprises in Cuba: Current Situation and Prospects
Camila Piñeiro, University of Havana

4. Impacto de los Lineamientos de la Política Económico y Social en la producción nacional de alimento
Armando Nova, University of Havana

Moderator: Mauricio Font, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies

Session # 2: Strategic Initiatives: Agriculture

1. Measuring Cuba’s Agricultural Transformations: Preliminary Findings
Mario González-Corzo, Lehman College, CUNY

2. U.S. Food and Agricultural Exports to Cuba – Uncertain Times Ahead
Bill Messina, University of Florida

Moderator: Emily Morris, Economist Intelligence Unit in London

Session # 3: Revamping Socialism: Perspectives and Prospects

1. Actualización in Perspective
Mauricio Font, Bildner Center for Western Hemisphere Studies

2. Cuban Restructuring: Economic Risks
Emily Morris, Economist Intelligence Unit in London

3. Prospects in a Changing Geo-Economic Environment Archibald Ritter, Carleton University, Canada

ROUNDTABLE: Implications and Future Agenda


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Yoani Sánchez on the January 28 Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba

Original Essay in Generacion Y here:  “Conference Rhymes With Patience” (…well in Spanish it does…)

This January seems like an October, a July, a November, anything other than the first month of the year. If anything characterizes beginnings it is making plans, projecting what is to come, outlining proposals even later if they aren’t completed. But because we grew up among so many slogans forecasting the future, today we resist talking about tomorrow. Exhausted from imagining a distant future that could be delayed five years or a decade, we no longer want to even predict the coming week. So we focus on this minute, on an immediacy that doesn’t allow us to raise our sights to look ahead. We live in the moment, because for too long they made us wish for a far off time that existed only in their speeches, in the pages of their books.

The next Communist Party Conference is also marked by this skepticism toward the future. Not surprising, then, are the low expectations Cubans show regarding a party meeting on January 28, the little that is said about it in the streets. The trifling comments are limited to an assurance that “this isn’t going to change anything,” or the glimmer of hope that “this will be the last chance for the ‘historic generation’.” Less than three weeks before it begins, even the official television isn’t showing any enthusiasm for the event. In the ranks of the Party itself there are many illusions and more than one militant will turn in his or her party card if the meeting ends with poor results. The time “purchased” last April during the Party Congress is about to end. The political reforms are urgent and even the system’s most faithful have begun to despair.

The most improbable, and yet the most desired, is that in this conference the first priority would be to put the nation ahead of partisan interests. But this would be asking the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) to commit suicide… and they are not going to do that. They are not going to open themselves to citizen participation without exclusions, nor are they going to dismantle the criminalization of disagreement. They bet their power on it. The reforms would have to be so clear, the change in discourse so marked, that instead of simple adjustments they would need to erase the slate and start again… and most likely they will refuse to do that. So, for a long time January hasn’t seemed like January, the Revolutionaries don’t behave that way and the future is a subject only for soothsayers and fortune-tellers.

Yoani Sánchez

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New Essay by Carmelo-Mesa-Lago: “LAS REFORMAS DE RAÚL CASTRO Y EL CONGRESO DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE CUBA: Avances, obstáculos y resultados”

Carmelo Mesa-Lago Catedrático Distinguido Emérito de Economía, Universidad de Pittsburgh

Original Essay Here:  Carmelo Mesa-Lago, Cuba VI Congreso CIDOB 2011

Resumen: En 2007, un año después de sustituir a Fidel, Raúl Castro anunció “reformas estructurales” y auspició el debate más amplio bajo la revolución, que alcanzó un alto consenso sobre los cambios necesarios. En los dos años siguientes, Raúl Castro introdujo modificaciones de poca importancia, pero el deterioro económico-social y la aguda crisis económica impulsaron dos reformas más profundas entre 2009 y 2011: el usufructo de tierras ociosas estatales, así como el despido de entre el 10% y el 35% de la fuerza laboral y su empleo en trabajos privados. En el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC), celebrado en abril de 2011, se ratificaron dichas reformas y se anunciaron otras menos importantes. Con estos antecedentes, en este trabajo se hace una revisión de este proceso centrada en los siguientes puntos:1) se identifican las reformas de Raúl Castro y los acuerdos más relevantes del Congreso, 2) se analizan las limitaciones y las dificultades que enfrentan en su implementación, 3) se revisan los ajustes efectuados y se resumen los resultados, y 4) se explora si hay consenso o disenso en la dirigencia para impulsar las reformas y sus efectos.

Carmelo Mesa-Lago

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Eusebio Mujal-León: “Survival, Adaptation and Uncertainty, The Case of Cuba”

Professor Eusebio Mujal-Leon, of Geogetown University, has just published a valuable analysis of Cuba’s current economic reforms and the changing political configuration under President Raul Castro.

The article was published in the Journal of International Affairs, Fall/Winter 2011, and can be found here: Mujal-Leon_JIA “Survival, Adaptation and Uncertainty, The Case of Cuba”

ABSTRACT

The Cuban Revolution recently experienced a major transition of leadership as power shifted hands from Fidel Castro to his younger brother, Raúl. Eschewing the role of caretaker, Raúl embarked on an ambitious program aiming to streamline a cumbersome and inefficient state while reforming the economy in ways that will increase agricultural production, encourage self-employment and lead to sustainable economic growth. At the same time, Raúl Castro refashioned the ruling coalition and proposed major changes to the ruling Communist Party, including term limits, leadership rotation and the separation of party and state functions. This article analyzes the emergence of a new Cuban political elite, explores how power is distributed between its military and party wings and examines the major challenges this coalition must overcome if it is to successfully manage the transition from the Castro era and  stabilize Cuban autocracy.

Below are two of Professor Mujal-Leon’s tables that summarize the changes in the membership of Cuba’s central political institutions.

ProfessorEusebio Mujal-Leon

 

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NUEVA EDICIÓN DE LA REVISTA ESPACIO LAICAL

The July-September 2011 edition of La Revista Espacio Laical has just been published.  Its primary focus is on an evaluation of the results of the VI Congress of the Communist party of Cuba.Included also is an interview with Phil Peters, author of the Blog The Cuban Triangle and Carlos Saladrigas.Unfortunately it is available only in Spanish.

Here is a full Table of Contents together with Abstracts of some of the Economics Essays with hyper-links.

Table of Contents:

Índice General
Secciones y artículos:

EDITORIAL : El reto de ser audaces  – Del Magisterio.

RELIGIÓN
– Contemplarán al que traspasaron.  Por Sandro Magister

– La contemplación de la belleza.  Por Joseph Ratzinger

PÁGINAS RESCATADASA cargo de Jorge Domingo Cuadriello
– El patriotismo cubano. Por Eliseo Giberga

EL DOSSIER: Post VI Congreso PCC
– El VI Congreso del Partido y los Lineamientos: ¿un punto de vi raje para Cuba?  Por Archibald Ritter
– El VI Congreso: una evaluación preliminar.  Por Armando Chaguaceda.
– Cuba: ¿qué cambia tras el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista?  Por Carmelo Mesa-Lago.
– Cambios en marcha y consensos por lograr.  Por José Ramón Vidal
– Tratando de reinventar el socialismo. (Entrevista a Ricardo Alarcón). Por Manuel Alberto Ramy
– Reformas económic as y desarrollo en el Este de Asia: ¿una experiencia para Cuba? Por Arturo López-Levy

INTERNACIONALES

– La apuesta egipcia. Entrevista a Antonios Naguip. Por Gianni Valente
– Mi vida para la libertad de Chile. Entrevista a Sergio Bitar. Por Roberto Veiga González

BÚSQUEDA:

– Cuba y su diáspora: el desafío de facilitar un reencuentro.  Por Carlos Saladrigas

– Poder  e ineptitud en el exilio de Miami. Por Alejandro Armengol

CUBA
– Vivir como vecinos. Entrevista a Philip Peters. Por Roberto Veiga González

– Aportando para el diálogo y el consenso.  Entrevista a Roberto Veiga González.  Por Armando Chaguaceda

TEMA POLÉMICO

– Saladrigas, Arboleya y el debate sobre el futuro de Cuba.  Por Lenier González Mederos

CULTURA

– Re-señas de libros. Por Jorge Domingo Cuadriello

– Elogio y digresión.  Por David Mateo

– Aspera ad Astra o el itinerario espiritual de un líder político. Por Habey Hechavarría Prado

– José María Chacón y Calvo. Por Malena Balboa Pereira

– Cambiar o no cambiar: ¿es ese el dilema? Por Francisco Almagro Domínguez

– Harold Bloom y yo. Por Roberto González Echeverría

ESPIRITUALIDAD

– En busca de una transformación relevante. Por Raúl Fornet-Betancourt

DE LAS ENTRAÑAS DE LA ISLA

– Cuba en su diversidad cultural. Por Jesús Guanche

EN DIÁLOGO

– El lugar de la ciudadanía. Participación política  y República en Cuba.  Por Julio César Guanche

LA POLÉMICA

– Las propuestas de Carlos Saladrigas para Cuba. Por Jesús Arboleya Cervera

– Comentarios sobre la entrevista a Saladrigas y las opiniones de Arboleya. Por Ramón de la Cruz Ochoa

– Saladrigas y el debate con Ramón de la Cruz. Por Jesús Arboleya Cervera

– Soberanía nacional, emigrados e inversionistas Por Arturo López-Levy

Abstracts

El VI Congreso del Partido y los Lineamientos: ¿un punto de viraje para Cuba? Por Archibald Ritter

El VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) probablemente será de gran importancia para el futuro de Cuba. La revisión que el Congreso hizo de los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución significa que ahora es políticamente correcto apoyar, promover e implementar esta ambiciosa agenda de reformas. Por deducción, es también políticamente correcto llegar a la conclusión de que medio siglo de experimentación económica estuvo en su mayor parte equivocada, y fue contraproducente e insostenible. A pesar de los intentos de crear una impresión de continuidad histórica con la referencia a una “actualización” del modelo económico, los viejos enfoques de gestión económica han quedado profundamente desacreditados. El Congreso ha certificado el clima creado por los cambios de opinión acerca de cómo puede funcionar mejor la economía cubana. Ahora parece que es altamente improbable un regreso a los viejos modos de operar.
(leer más…)


El VI Congreso: una evaluación preliminar. Por Armando Chaguaceda
Pocos eventos han generado tantas esperanzas, frustraciones y debates como el pasado VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba. La postergación del mismo por 14 años y el trasfondo político del país (continuación de la crisis estructural del modelo socialista de Estado, inicio de reformas económicas e institucionales, relevo de liderazgo) fueron caldo de cultivo para las más variadas especulaciones. Por ello, al cierre inmediato de sus cortinas, diferentes analistas compartieron sus plurales evaluaciones del foro, tributando al necesario balance de sus resultados en cuyo seno se inserta el presente texto. (leer más…)


Cuba: ¿qué cambia tras el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista? Por Carmelo Mesa-Lago
En abril de 2011 se realizó el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba (pcc), después de 14 años sin celebrar ese tipo de reuniones. El Congreso estuvo marcado por las ambiciosas reformas que Raúl Castro se propuso como meta tras reemplazar a su hermano Fidel Castro en 2006. No obstante, las contradicciones, las indecisiones, las inercias y las resistencias del aparato burocrático siembran dudas acerca de la eficacia de los cambios aprobados por el Congreso para sacar al país de la profunda crisis económica que enfrenta y recuperar unas fuerzas agotadas. (leer más…)


Cambios en marcha y consensos por lograr. Por José Ramón Vidal
Las sesiones del VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba, celebradas en abril último, cerraron una etapa de formulación y consulta de propuestas dirigidas a producir transformaciones en el modelo económico y social, que como es lógico suponer tienen y tendrán en lo adelante inevitables repercusiones en la esfera política. (leer más…)


Tratando de reinventar el socialismo. (Entrevista a Ricardo Alarcón). Por Manuel Alberto Ramy
Hace apenas 48 horas concluyó el VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba, un congreso que, según lo que he leído y escuchado, prefigura un país cualitativamente distinto y una sociedad diferente. El presidente de la Asamblea Nacional y miembro del Buró Político del Partido Comunista, Ricardo Alarcón, me ha concedido esta entrevista. Sé que dispone de poco tiempo así que me gustaría hacerle tres preguntas muy concretas. La primera está referida al ámbito del Poder Popular.(leer más…)


– Reformas económicas y desarrollo en el Este de Asia: ¿una experiencia para Cuba? Por Arturo López-Levy
Al discutir los cambios planteados en los Lineamientos económicos y sociales del VI Congreso del Partido Comunista de Cuba, muchos observadores han evocado las reformas en el Este de Asia, particularmente los procesos ocurridos en China y Vietnam. El contexto cultural, económico y social cubano es diferente al de estas naciones; sin embargo, conviene plantearse si hay lecciones de aquellas experiencias que Cuba pueden adaptar. (leer más…)


 

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Espacio Laical, “The Sixth Party Congress and “Lineamientos”: A Turning Point for Cuba?”

Just Published on Espacio Laical, Suplemento Digital No.132 / 16 de Junio 2011
Tomado de la sección Búsqueda (revista 3-2011) Hyperlink here:

The Sixth Congress of the Cuba’s Communist Party will likely be of immense importance for Cuba’s future. The ratification of the revised Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución “by the National Assembly means that it is now politically correct to support, advocate and implement an ambitious reform agenda.  By implication, it also is politically correct to draw the conclusion that a half century of economic experimentation with the lives of Cuban citizens was for the most part misguided, counterproductive, and unsustainable.  Despite attempts to create an impression of historical continuity by referring to the “updating” of the economic model, the old approaches to economic management have been deeply discredited. The shifting climate of opinion regarding how the Cuban economy can best function has been certified as reasonable by the National Assembly.  It now appears that a regression to old modes of economic operation is now highly improbable..

The economic future for Cuba clearly lies in a newly-rebalanced albeit vaguely-envisaged mixed market economy that will be the outcome of the various reforms that are slated to be implemented.  This is a surprising reversal of fortunes. It also constitutes a vindication of the some of the views of the critics of past economic policies.

The “Lineamientos” represent an attempt by President Raul Castro to forge his own “legacy” and to emerge from the long shadow of his brother, as well as to set the Cuban economy on a new course. The ratification of the reform agenda represents a successful launch of the “legacy” project.  President Raul Castro would indeed make a unique and valuable contribution to Cuba and its citizens were he to move Cuba definitively through dialogue and agreement among all Cubans towards a model that guarantees both economic and social rights as well as civil liberties and authentic democracy.

Are moves in these directions likely to happen? Not under current political circumstances. However, there are bottom-up pressures building and some official suggestions that movement towards political liberalization is not impossible. In the meantime, Raul’s de-centralizing, de-bureaucratizing and “market-liberalizing” reforms been launched. This is a good start for the construction of a positive independent “legacy.”

I. Cuba’s Economic Situation

In various speeches since 2006, Raul Castro has indicated that he recognizes the problems that Cuba confronts in terms of the production of agricultural and industrial goods and improvement of Cuba’s infrastructure (despite the ostensibly solid GDP performance from 2005 to 2009 before Cuba was hit by the international recession.) He is well aware of the central causal forces underlying weak Cuba’s economic vulnerabilities and weaknesses such as the unbalanced structure of the economy, the overburden of deadening rules and regulations and a sclerotic bureaucracy and the monetary and exchange rate pathologies and dysfunctional incentive environment that deform the energies and lives of Cuban citizens.

Cuba’s economic plight can be summarized quickly with a couple of illustrations. First, Cuba’s underwent  serious de-industrialization after 1989 from which it has not recovered, reaching only about 51% of the 1989 level by 2009 (Chart 1)

Source: ONE AEC, 2004, Table 11.1 and 2IX.1

Note: Data for 1990-1997 are not available

There are a variety of reasons for the collapse of the industrial sctor:

(a)    The antiquated technological inheritance from the Soviet era as of 1989;

(b)   Insufficient maintenance over a number of decades before and after 1989;

(c)    The 1989-1993economic melt-down;

(d)   Insufficient levels of investment; (The overall level of investment in Cuba in 2008 was 10.5% of GDP compared to 20.6% for all of Latin America  according to UN ECLA, 2011, Table A-4.)

(e)    The dual monetary and exchange rate system that penalizes potential exporters that would receive one old (Moneda Nacional) peso for each US dollar earned from exports;

(f)    Competition in Cuba’s domestic market with China which has had a grossly undervalued exchange rate, coexisting with Cuba’s grossly overvalued exchange rate.

Second, the collapse of the sugar agro-industrial complex is well known and is illustrated in Chart 2. The sugar sector essentially was a “cash cow” milked to death for its foreign exchange earnings, by insufficient maintenance, by insufficient re-investment preventing productivity improvement, and by the exchange rate regime under which it labored.
Source: NU CEPAL, 2000 Cuadro A.86; ONE, 2010 Table 11.4

The consequences of the collapse of the sugar sector include the loss of about US$ 3.5 billion in foreign exchange earnings foregone (generated largely with domestic value added); reductions in co-produced electricity; a large increase in idled farm land; a destruction of the capacity to produce ethanol; damaging regional and local development impacts, and a destruction of much of the “cluster” of input-providing, output-processing and marketing activities related to sugar.

Third, the production of food for domestic consumption has been weak since 1989, despite some successes in urban agriculture.  Food imports have increased steadily and in recent years account for an estimated 75 to 80% of domestic food consumption despite large amounts of unused farm land. Meanwhile agricultural exports have languished,

 

Chart 3  Cuban Exports and Imports of Foodstuffs, 1989-2009
(excluding Tobacco and Alcoholic Beverages) (Millions CUP)

Source: NU CEPAL, 2000 Tables A.36 and A.37, and ONE, AEC, Various Years.

Fourthly, “inflation-adjusted “ or “real” wages in the official economy collapsed and have not recovered significantly according to estimates from the Centro de Estudios sobre la Economia Cubana (Chart 4.)  This is indeed a major calamity for the official state economy. But though the official 2008 wage rate remained around 25% of its level of 1989, most people had other sources of income, such as remittances, legal self-employment, home produced goods and services, economic activities in the underground economy, income supplements in joint ventures, goods in kind from the state and widespread pilferage.  Those without other sources of income are in poverty.

Chart 4   Cuba: Real Inflation-Adjusted Wages, 1989-2009
(
Pesos, Moneda Nacional)

Vidal  Alejandro, Pavel, “Politica Monetaria y Doble Moneda”, in Omar Everleny Perez et. al., Miradas a la Economia Cubana, La Habana: Editorial Caminos, 2009

Furthermore, despite the exceedingly low official rates of unemployment – around 1.6 to 1.7%, (far below the “natural rate” of unemployment which represents normal new entrants, job-changers and structural changes in any economy) – underemployment is obviously very high. Presumably the 1.8 million workers considered by the Government to be redundant and subject to probable lay-off and transfer to small enterprise, are “underemployed”, accounting for around 35 per cent of the labor force.

A further dimension of the fragility of Cuba’s economic situation is the dependence on the special relationship with Venezuela that relies upon high oil prices and the presence and munificence of President Chavez.

It is to the credit of President Raul Castro that he has faced these problems directly, diagnosed their sources, and produced the “Lineamientos” to deal with them. The central sources of the difficulties are the general structure of incentives that orients the economic activities of Cuban citizens, this including the dual monetary and exchange rate system, the tight containment of individual economic initiatives, the detailed rules and regulations of the omnipresent bureaucracy. Paradoxically, in attempting to control everything in the past, the government has ended up controlling very little. The effectiveness of stricter state controls actually leads to weaker genuine control due to their promotion of illegalities, corruption and the ubiquitous violation of unrealistic regulations.

II. The Lineamientos

The objective of the “Lineamientos” is “to guarantee the continuity and irreversibility of Socialism” as well as economic development (p.10). This is to be achieved through an “up-dating” of the economic model that should result in utilization of idle lands, reversal of decapitalization of infrastructure and industry, a restructuring of employment, increased labor productivity, increased and diversified exports, decentralized decision-making and elimination of monetary and exchange rate dualism (p. 8.)

But the term “Socialism” remains somewhat ambiguous in the document.  Reference is made to “socialist property” and “preserving the conquests of the Revolution.”  Especially interesting is the statement that

“…socialism signifies equality of rights and equality of opportunities for all the citizens, not egalitarianism” (p.9)

This assertion could be of game-changing significance, as it articulates a fundamental principle of “Social Democracy” more so that a traditional principle of  “Socialism.”  This leaves questions unanswered and doors unclosed.

The “Lineamientos” are in effect an ambitions and comprehensive “wish-list” or statement of aspirations. Many of the 313 recommendations are fairly obvious, trite and general statements of reasonable economic management. Some statements have been made repeatedly over a number of decades, including those relating to the expansion and diversification of exports, science and technology policy, the sugar agro-industrial complex, or the development of by-products and derivatives from the sugar industry (an objective at least since 1950.) Restating many of these as guidelines can’t do much harm, but certainly does not guarantee their implementation.

There are also opaque elements among the guidelines and seeming contradictions as some of them stress continuity of state planning and control while others emphasize greater autonomy for enterprises.  For example, Guideline 7 emphasizes how “planning” will include non-state forms of enterprise and “new methods…. of state control of the economy” while No. 62 states “The centralized character …of the degree of planning of the prices of products and services, which the state has an interest in regulating will be maintained.” But numerous other guidelines spell out the greater powers that state and non-state enterprises will have over a wide range of their activities including pricing (Guidelines 8 to 22 and 63.)

While there are a few gaps and shortcomings in the “Lineamientos” as well as the references to planning and state control, they include some deep-cutting proposals on various aspects of economic organization and policy that represent the inauguration of a movement towards a “market-friendly” economic policy environment. Among these are:

  • Greater autonomy of the enterprise in numerous dimensions, hiring and firing, wage structures, financing, price setting, investing, and also in facing bankruptcy;
  • A phase-out of rationing and the ration book and the more careful targeting of social assistance to those who need it, thereby also strengthening incentives to work (No. 162);
  • The establishment of wholesale markets for inputs for all types of enterprise. (No. 9);
  • Continuing distribution of unused state lands to small farmers (No. 187);
  • Reduction of state controls regarding small farmers and cooperatives regarding producer decision-making, marketing of crops, provision of inputs, and (No. 178-184)

A central policy thrust is the expansion of the self-employment and cooperative sector in order to absorb ultimately some 1,800.000 state workers considered redundant. The legislation already implemented in October 2010 liberalized policy somewhat so as to encourage the establishment of additional microenterprises – especially by the liberalization of licensing, the establishment of wholesale markets for inputs and the recent relaxation of hiring restrictions. However, the limitations of the policy changes are highlighted by the modest increase in the number of “Paladar” chairs – from 12 to 20.

Unfortunately current restrictions will prevent the expected expansion of the sector. These include the heavy taxation that can exceed 100% of net earnings (after costs are deducted from revenues)  for enterprises with high costs of production; the prohibition of the use of intermediaries and advertising, and continued petty restrictions. Perhaps most serious restriction is that all types of enterprises that are not specifically permitted are prohibited including virtually all professional activities.  The 176 permitted activities, some defined very narrowly, contrast with the  “Yellow Pages” of the telephone directory for Ottawa (half the size of Havana) that includes 883 varieties of activities, with 192 varieties for “Business Services”, 176 for “Home and Garden, 64 for “Automotive”  and 29 for “Computer and Internet Services.” Presumably policies towards micro-and small enterprise will be further liberalized in the months ahead if laid-off workers are to be absorbed productively.

One short-coming of the “Lineamientos” is the lack a time dimension and a depiction of how the various changes will be implemented. There are no clear priorities among the innumerable guidelines, no sequences of actions, and no apparent coordination of the guidelines from the standpoint of their implementation. It remains a “check-list” of good intentions, though none-the-less valuable.

The absence of a vision of how change was to occur and the slow pace of the adoption of the reforms so far is also worrisome. However, the Administration of Raul Castro has been deliberative and systematic though also cautious. It is probable that somewhere in the government of Raul Castro there is a continually evolving time-line and master-plan for the implementation of the reform measures.

A careful and well-researched approach to economic reform is obviously desirable. The difficulties encountered in laying off 500,000 state sector workers and re-absorbing them in the small-enterprise sector by March 31, 2011 has probably encouraged an even more cautious  “go-slow” approach.  Perhaps “slow and steady wins the race!”

A process of economic —but not political— reform seems to have already begun following the Congress. Where it will lead is hard to predict. Presumably Raúl Castro’s regime would like the process to end with the political status quo plus a healthy economy. The latter would require a new balance between public and private sectors, with a controlled movement toward the market mechanism in price determination and the shaping of economic structures, and with the construction of a rational configuration of incentives shaping citizens’ daily economic actions so that their private endeavors become compatible with Cuba’s broader economic well-being.

In such a reform process many things would be changing simultaneously with symbiotic impacts and consequences that will likely be painful and are difficult to foresee. Will President Raul Castro have the courage to take the risks inherent in an ambitious process of economic change? This remains to be seen. But the economic and political consequences of inaction are so bleak and the attractiveness of a positive historical “legacy” are so enticing that President Raul Castro will continue.

The economic reform process has been launched. It is in its early stages. It will likely continue under the leadership of Raul Castro. It will proceed far beyond the “Lineamientos” under new generations of Cuban citizens in economic as well as political spheres.

Bibliography

Naciones Unidas, CEPAL, La Economia Cubana: Reformas estructurales y desempeňo en los noventa, Santiago, Chile, 2000, Second Edition.

Oficina Nacional de Estadisticas (ONE), Anuario Estadistico de Cuba (AEC), various years. Website: http://www.one.cu/

Partido Comunista de Cuba,  Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución, Aprobado el 18 de abril de 2011, VI Congreso del PCC

United nations, Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, Preliminary Overview of the Economies of Latin America and the Caribbean, 2010, Santiago, Chile January, 2011

Vidal Alejandro, Pavel, “Politica Monetaria y Doble Moneda”, in Omar Everleny Perez et. al., Miradas a la Economia Cubana, La Habana: Editorial Caminos, 2009

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Arturo Lopez-Levy: “Change In Post-Fidel Cuba: Political Liberalization, Economic Reform and Lessons for U.S. Policy”

Arturo Lopez-Levy

Here is the Hyperlink: Arturo Lopez Levy,Change In Post-Fidel Cuba: Political Liberalization, Economic Reform and Lessons for U.S. Policy” New America Foundation, May 2011,

Executive Summary:

This report explores the historic reform process currently underway in Cuba. It looks first at the political context in which the VI Cuban Communist Party Congress took place, including the Cuban government’s decision to release a significant number of political prisoners as part of a new dialogue with the Cuban Catholic Church. It then analyzes Cuba’s nascent processes of economic reform and political liberalization. To conclude, it discusses the challenges and opportunities these processes pose for U.S policy toward Cuba.

In his essay “Change in Post-Fidel Cuba”, Arturo Lopez-Levy, (a lecturer and PhD Candidate at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver and also a graduate of the Carleton University-University of Havana Masters Program in Economics!) presents a wide ranging survey and careful analysis of economic and political changes in Cuba since Raul replaced Fidel in 2006, organizing his analysis around the pivotal Sixth Party Congress of April 2011.  Lopez-Levy tries hard to be even-handed and objective in his analysis. He succeeds well, though virtually no-one anywhere on any of the various political spectrums relevant to Cuba will be pleased with all of his assessments. His knowledge of Cuba at this juncture of its history is deep. He is particularly well qualified for undertaking such an analysis not only on the basis of his knowledge of Cuba and also given his academic work. His examination of Cuba’s political situation, the reform process, and US-Cuba relations is worth serious attention.

On the whole, Lopez-Levy is optimistic that the economic reform process, still in its initial phases, will be pragmatic, deep-cutting and irreversible but possibly excessively gradualistic.  He sketches the various elements of policy change that are slated for implementation and that will lead to a more decentralized and marketized economic framework that should help unleash and harmonize the economic creativity of Cuban citizens.

He is also optimistic that meaningful political liberalization will occur and indeed characterizes the regime under President Raul Castro as “Post-Totalitarian” – following some works of Juan Linz and Alfred Stepan (Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation, Baltimore: John

Hopkins University Press, 1996.) In Lopez-Levy’s words (p. 13), “Totalitarian practices have softened.” This obviously indicates that the author judges that practices indeed were totalitarian under Fidel and that they continue, though now somewhat “lighter”. (Political prisoners were released and independent critics have not been imprisoned.)

Lopez-Levy seems ready to be quite critical of Fidel but tends to give Raul the benefit of the doubt in a number of cases.  His euphemistic characterization of Fidel’s dictatorial rule is in fact damning if also humorous.

“By virtue of his historical leadership, Fidel Castro, in and of himself, embodied the minimum number of votes needed to establish a “winning coalition” in Cuban politics.”

But Lopez-Levy seems to want to find good things to say about Raul. For example,

“As Raul Castro hinted in his inaugural speech to the VI Party Congress2, this reform process will occur in tandem with political liberalization and the emergence of a Cuba more open toward the outside world.”

He also rather generously explains Raul’s selection of Jose Ramon Machado Ventura as First  Vice-President, and Second Secretary of the PCC as follows:

The decision to promote Machado (one year older than Raul)  to the second in command, first in the government, and now in  the Party, can be explained by two factors: 1) the triumph of the alliance of military leaders and provincial party czars as the dominant force in Cuban elite politics (versus government bureaucrats and Fidel’s appointed ideologues), and Raul Castro’s conviction that Fidel’s policy of promotion of young cadres “by helicopter”, not in a step by step Leninist fashion was a mistake.

The author’s own position on the political monopoly of the Communist Party of Cuba, sanctified by Article Five of the Cuban Constitution, does not seem clear. Lopez-Levy does speak supportively of political liberalization and refers to Fidel’s monopoly of the votes. But nowhere that I can see does he raise the over-arching central political issue and confront what he labels Raul’s “softer totalitarianism.”

The New America Foundation’s U.S.-Cuba Policy Initiative, directed by Anya Landau French, seeks to take advantage of recent developments to redirect U.S.-Cuba policy towards a more sensible, mutually beneficial relationship. Learn more at http://cuba.newamerica.net

 

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Juan Tamayo citing Oscar Chepe on the Revised PCC Sixth Congress Guidelines

Juan Tamayo,

El Nuevo HeraldMay 10, 2011
External Link: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/05/09/v-fullstory/2209271/cuba-publishes-list-of-proposed.html

Cuba’s ruling Communist Party finally published its pie-in-the-sky list of proposed economic reforms on Monday, raising both high hopes for a more efficient economy and deep questions about exactly how that would be achieved.

The 313 “guidelines” proposed expanding the sale of homes and cars and the ability of Cubans to travel abroad as tourists, creating production cooperatives and slashing state subsidies and payrolls, among many other changes.

Endorsed last month at a Communist Party Congress, the proposals are designed to rescue a crisis-plagued economy by opening the doors to private business activity without totally abandoning Cuba’s half-century of Soviet-styled central controls.

But the proposals published in the Granma newspaper, the official voice of the party, provided few details on how those changes would be carried out, leaving optimists and pessimists alike to read whatever they wanted into the list.

Cars already can be bought and sold if they were manufactured before 1959 — the year that Fidel Castro’s guerrillas seized power — and houses can be legally exchanged in a complicated system of “permutas” or swaps.

Cubans already can travel abroad as tourists — as long as the government grants them “white cards” — the coveted permissions to leave the country, and return without being considered permanent émigrés who loses all their properties on the island.

Dissident Havana economist Oscar Espinosa Chepe said he was still analyzing the guidelines but considered it “very positive” that they recognized the need for various forms of production, including cooperatives and what Cuba calls “self-employment” — micro enterprises such as family restaurants and party clowns.

But he added that guideline 265 — “to study a policy that would make it easier for Cubans to travel abroad as tourists” — could easily create chaos because “a lot of people would leave for good because of the economic conditions that we face.”

Though officially only “guidelines,” their sensitivity is reflected in their history.

Raúl Castro first proposed 291 items that closely matched his own thinking on reforms late last year, then threw it open to a national debate. By the time the Communist Party Congress opened April 16, more than 40 items had been dropped, one-third had been reworded and the total had grown to 311. And when the government announced Sunday that they would be published on Monday, they had grown to 313.

They are expected to be put into effect by either government decrees or laws approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power, which usually meets only for two brief sessions a year.

The latest list of 313 proposals was not available outside Cuba as of late Monday, but news agency reports from Havana noted some of the details mentioned or left out of the items.

The section on buying and selling home, for example, made no mention of what kinds of taxes or fees will be charged on the transactions, according to the Associated Press. Blogger Yoani Sanchez told journalists that she was skeptical about item 265 because it made no mention of lifting the need for the “white cards.”

Many Cubans already now receive permission to travel abroad, for tourism or family reunions, to any country that would issue them visas, though the “white cards” are often denied to dissidents, physicians, minors and members of the military.

One proposal on foreign investment described it as needed but noted that it should bring with it advanced technologies and management methods as well as new export markets in order to create skills and capital for new jobs.

Mid-sized government enterprises could be spun off as cooperatives run by their current employees, according to the news reports, and would be allowed to sell their products on the open markets. But there was no word on who would set the prices for the goods produced.

Some state-owned buildings could be turned into private residences to ease Cuba’s critical housing shortage, according to an Associated Press report. The government also wants to eliminate the country’s burdensome two-currency system and legalize the sale of construction material at unsubsidized prices.

Other guidelines calls for the continued shrinking of the ration card, which provides all Cubans with a basic basket of food and personal items per month at highly subsidized prices, and replacing it with a system of subsidies for poor families only.

One big issue now is whether any reform enacted will have the desired impact in a country where tight government controls mean that few things can be done legally — but almost anything can be done illegally — Espinosa Chepe told El Nuevo Herald.

Cubans have been illegally buying and selling cars and homes for decades, often paying bribes to the very government officials who were supposed to be blocking or catching and punishing such deals.

“Now comes the strong fight over these points,” Chepe said, “truly the most profound changes in 52 years but one could argue that not enough for the level of crisis that we face in Cuba.”

 

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Finally, the Guidelines Documents Approved at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba

By Arch Ritter

Finally, courtesy of Cubadebate, 10 de mayo de 2011, the key economic documents from the April Party Congress have been published. Here they are:

Lineamientos de la Política económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución, Aprobado el 18 de abril de 2011. VI Congreso del PCC

Información sobre el resultado del Debate de los Lineamientos de la Política Económica y Social del Partido y la Revolución

More on this later.

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