Cuba adopts sweeping economic reforms amid deepening crisis

Cuba's National Assembly approved a package of 176 measures covering 23 areas of economic and social transformation. The reforms introduce non‑state management, new property regimes, market‑based financial planning, a transition to alternative energy sources, decentralisation of the economy, municipal autonomy and a liberalised foreign‑trade framework. They also provide for the import of inputs and raw materials, a partial dollarisation, tax and exchange reforms, price policy adjustments, modernisation of the banking sector, anti‑corruption controls, and new investment modalities in tourism, digital services and artificial‑intelligence technologies.

The changes come as the island faces severe shortages of electricity, food, medical supplies and foreign‑exchange reserves, worsened by the United States embargo that the Cuban government says has increased its economic losses by $7.5 billion in 2024‑25 and $170 billion cumulatively over six decades. The reforms legalise small and medium private enterprises, open selected sectors to foreign investment and end certain universal subsidies, a move described by analysts as a pragmatic response to the protracted blockade, the pandemic and earlier economic dependencies.

Commentators debate whether the reforms echo past Soviet or Chinese models, but the Cuban authorities present them as a necessary adjustment to preserve the socialist system amid material scarcity and a black‑market economy that had been operating informally for years.