The Cuban National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP) held its Third Extraordinary Session this Thursday to discuss and approve a package of 176 proposals for economic and social transformations, among which stands out the transition of the legal structure of the socialist state enterprise to that of a joint-stock company or partnership, as reported by the official Granma.
The session, held at the Palace of Conventions in Havana, included the virtual participation of General Raúl Castro and the physical presence of the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel.
It was the Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz who presented to the deputies the transformations, grouped into 23 fundamental axes and arising from 390 proposals received, of which 66.7% were accepted; the Political Bureau also incorporated 69 additional recommendations.
Marrero Cruz described the moment as "the most complex context the country has faced since the special period," attributing the crisis to U.S. sanctions and shortcomings of its own model, while failing to acknowledge the structural responsibility of over six decades of centralized management.
The transition from the socialist state enterprise to a joint-stock or partnership company is the most significant measure of Axis 1, which is focused on the management model of economic actors.
The presented document states that "from now on, what is approved for the other stakeholders will also apply to the socialist state enterprise".
Among the complementary measures of this axis are: expanding the powers of the business system to operate on equal footing with other economic actors; decentralizing the approval of wholesale and retail prices; eliminating the state salary scale and establishing a minimum wage negotiated with workers; and removing state subsidies to businesses.
The Superior Business Management Organizations (OSDE) are also authorized to create state-owned companies and small and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes), and provincial and municipal governments are empowered to create, merge, or liquidate local state-owned companies.
The approved package goes beyond the state business sector. Among the additional reforms are the authorization of private banking for the first time in decades, the opening up to investment from Cubans living abroad, the removal of general price caps, and the reduction of the ministerial apparatus from 27 to between 20 and 21 ministries.
The regime sought ideological support for its measures by quoting words from Fidel Castro from 1993: "Life, reality, the dramatic situation that the world is experiencing forces us to do what we otherwise would never have done if we had had capital and if we had had the technology to do it."
Marrero Cruz emphasized that the reforms do not signify a renunciation of socialism: "These actions do not represent a capitulation, but rather a sovereign adaptation of the instruments of development to the specific circumstances of the country."
The process that led to this session was expedited. On June 12, Díaz-Canel publicly announced the economic reforms, on June 17, the Plenary of the Central Committee of the PCC gave them political support, and this Thursday the ANPP formally approved them in record time.
Structural change occurs when Cuba had, according to 2023 data, 2,422 state-owned enterprises, more than 5,000 cooperatives, and 270 wholly Cuban capital companies, an ecosystem that the regime is now seeking to reorganize under commercial legal frameworks while not abandoning, at least in official discourse, the State's control over the economy.
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