A Lot Done but Much More to Do: An Assessment of the Cuban Economic Transformation So Far

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/intejcubastud.5.2.0117
• Published date: 01 October 2013
• Date: 01 October 2013
• Pages: 117-139
• Author: C. Juan Triana Cordoví,Stephen Wilkinson
• Subject Matter: economy,Guidelines,results,performance

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A LOT DONE BUT MUCH MORE TO DO:

AN ASSESSMENT OF THE CUBAN ECONOMIC

TRANSFORMATION SO FAR

C. Juan Triana Cordoví

Centre for the Study of the Cuban Economy, University of Havana

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to provide a brief summary of the last two years of the process of

transformation in Cuba from a primarily economic perspective. It consists of f‌ive parts:

an introduction, which makes it clear that the changes are not merely economic; a f‌irst

section that deals with the urgent needs of economic development; a second section that

seeks to highlight how the process has been gaining in depth and scope and now focuses

more on how to def‌ine the paths of development than on survival; a third section that

evaluates the results in two perspectives, from the dynamics of the process of change and

from the country’s economic performance in recent years (although with restrictions due

to data availability); and conclusions.

Keywords: economy, Guidelines, results, performance

Introduction

Two years after the Lineamientos (Guidelines) were approved as the programmatic

document of the changes being made in Cuba it is time to take stock, however

brief, of their meaning and what has been achieved.

The transformation undertaken has undoubted precedents that cannot be

ignored, but it responds to a reality that is qualitatively different from that which

pertained during previous processes, just as it has references to the international

situation, but neither are they exactly the same.

The scope of the changes (which the Guidelines have caused) is holistic and

has not only led to changes in the economy, but is accompanied by the deepest,

and possibly the most questioned, institutional changes that have occurred in the

country since the mid-1970s. In fact, these transformations challenge the Cuba

of the present and introduce logical questions about Cuba’s future. They are not

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only associated with a form of economic operation, but also the political and

ideological superstructure that must promote and legitimise it.

They are totally legitimate in the sense that the country that is becoming

transformed sustains a society built from a socialism (that of the 1970s and

80s) that replicated patterns generated in Europe and that, after 30 years, failed

to generate the means to eliminate the structural deformations of underdevel-

opment. This society is now moving towards a different socialism, one that is

Cuban, to be built upon national conditions that are very different from the

European, without a theoretical framework, that closely f‌its those conditions,

and it is doing so at a time when an unquestionable generational transition is

taking place. All this implies a paradigm shift even though in essence what is

being attempted is to keep alive the socialist ideal.

To draw the contours of this new socialist ideal is not a simple task, and to

def‌ine the details of its operation is perhaps a diff‌icult goal to achieve due to the

very dynamic nature of the changes to be made.

After two years of implementation, it is time to review the progress and the

way forward in the coming years. The work below is intended to contribute to

that purpose.

1 From the Confrontation of an Adverse External Environment to a

New Conception of Cuban Socialism

Just as in the case of the process of opening that began in 1990, the trigger

for the current updating process is associated with external constraints. Indeed,

what we know today as ‘the updating of the Cuban economic model’ is the

direct result of a process that started from the middle of 2007 and had as its

genesis the confrontation to an adverse external environment:

Since 2005 the limitations of the economy have been evident: to address the def‌icit in

the f‌inancial account of the balance of payments, withholding foreign bank transfers

and the high amount of debt maturities, all that meant a great stress in handling the

economy. (Guidelines, 2011)

The process initiated in 2007 has passed through stages which have ranged

from targeting urgent problems (putting idle land into production, adjusting

imports to meet the payments crisis, etc.) and removing a f‌irst set of prohibitions

(admitting Cuban citizens into tourist hotels, the sale of cell phones, etc.) to the

formation of a more comprehensive transformation of the economy and society

(The Economic and Social Guidelines), the referendum, the approval process

at the different levels of the political direction of the country (and State and

Party), the creation of a special institution for the implementation and process

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