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Among the 176 economic and social transformations presented by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz this Thursday before the National Assembly of People's Power, one reform stands out that modifies a historical principle of the Cuban economy: the absolute predominance of centralized resource allocation by the State.
The measures included in Axis 3, dedicated to transformations in the economic planning system, propose a gradual transition towards a model where market signals will play a more significant role in resource allocation and economic decision-making, published the official newspaper Granma.
According to Marrero, the government aims to enhance medium- and long-term planning, focusing on major macroeconomic balances, addressing structural issues, and defining general policies for all economic agents.
One of the most significant changes is the formal inclusion of the economic, commercial, and service activities of non-state actors in the projections of the National Economic and Social Development Plan up to 2030, as well as in the provincial and municipal development strategies.
The measure implies recognizing within official planning the increasing importance that private micro, small, and medium enterprises, as well as other forms of non-state management, have acquired in the national economy.
The deepest transformation, however, lies in the transition to a financial planning model in which the State will progressively abandon the physical distribution of resources.
According to the proposal, state-owned enterprises will be able to access inputs, foreign exchange, and other productive resources in a decentralized manner through market mechanisms.
Likewise, the so-called state commission will be executed through contracts between offering and demanding entities, while the planning process must explicitly take into account the needs of the internal market.
Although the government will maintain control over balances considered strategic, such as those related to food, energy, currency, and the state budget, these will take on a role of diagnosis, anticipation, and correction of economic policies.
The measures also include expanding the limits for investment approval by decentralizing powers to state-owned companies, commercial enterprises, and entities with foreign investment, based on their financial capacity and access to resources.
The announcement is part of a comprehensive package of economic reforms presented by the regime amid a crisis that the authorities themselves describe as the most severe since the Special Period.
Transformations come after years during which the official discourse questioned market mechanisms, but now they explicitly incorporate them as necessary tools to attempt to reactivate an economy impacted by declining production, currency shortages, power outages, and the sustained deterioration of the living conditions of the population.
The new direction adds to other measures announced this week, including the authorization of private banking, the creation of private exchange houses, the flexibilization of small and medium-sized enterprises, and a greater openness to foreign investment. These decisions reflect how deeply the crisis has forced the government to adopt mechanisms that had remained outside the accepted boundaries of the Cuban economic model for decades.
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