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The opposition figure Manuel Cuesta Morúa summarized the verdict on the economic reform package announced on Friday by Miguel Díaz-Canel in three words: “late Chinese reforms”. This phrase encapsulates the widespread skepticism with which analysts, opposition members, and citizens received the measures presented to the press last Thursday.
The package stipulates that municipal governments will be able to directly manage their own enterprises, make decisions regarding the economic actors in their territory, and attract foreign investment, including from Cubans residing abroad. Municipalities will also have the authority to import, export, and manage their own foreign currency without intermediaries, while state-owned enterprises will operate without intermediaries. The plan also includes a reduction in ministries, provisions to facilitate land use by farmers, and tariff incentives for the purchase of productive inputs.
Cuesta Morúa, president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, was the most vocal critic. “The first thing that should be done is to consider giving a place to all Cubans in the process. Second, create an institutional climate of trust with profound reforms in the legal framework and the constitutional order, which guarantees and secures people to embark on a path of building prosperity and well-being. This is done under improvisation. I am skeptical and cautious if, on the other hand, it is not also accompanied by reforms in the civil and political spheres, which is what the country needs,” he stated to Martí Noticias, which gathered the opinions of various civil society actors.
From Havana, the analyst and activist Julio Aliaga Pesant pointed out the lack of legal basis for the announcement and the state of the ruler presenting it. "He is a person who is unhinged, completely shattered. He is a man of my age, by the way, 66 years old. Additionally, the measures he claims to be implementing lack a legal framework that protects or defends the investments being discussed, neither the investment nor the opening. This comes poorly, late, and poorly done," he stated.
The independent journalist Guillermo del Sol, from Villa Clara, compared the announcement to the failed Tarea Ordenamiento initiated in 2021 under the technical direction of Marino Murillo, which was acknowledged as a failure by the regime itself in December 2023. "This is the same thing Marino Murillo said during the ordenamiento task. In other words, they are just repeating the same thing, another farce," Del Sol asserted.
The economist Pedro Monreal had already warned in May that Cuba has missed the train of the reforms in China and Vietnam, pointing out that the conditions to replicate that model of controlled opening no longer exist, and he described the package as "belated pragmatism." Meanwhile, the Cuban-American businessman Carlos Saladrigas was blunt: there will be no sustainable investment in Cuba without political change and an independent judiciary.
The reforms are announced in the worst economic context Cuba has faced in decades: the economy has contracted by approximately 23% since 2019, with an additional projected decline of 7.2% in 2026 according to The Economist Intelligence Unit, while the country suffers from prolonged blackouts and shortages of food, medicine, and fuel.
The measures are still pending formal approval by the Political Bureau and the National Assembly, scheduled for July 2026, which means they do not even have definitive status at the time Díaz-Canel presented them to the press.
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