Photo: Jorge Luis Borges
Text: Editorial Cuba Noticias 360
When it was announced in mid-2022 with great fanfare, the modification of the foreign investment policy in Internal Trade promised to revitalize the sphere and incorporate raw materials, equipment and renewable energy sources, all with the purpose of shaking up the static panorama of the Cuban economy.
The flexibility to foreign capital was part of a package of measures announced by the former vice prime minister and head of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, who spoke at that time of a strategy to put offers in the retail market and incorporate fundamental inputs for the development of this sector.
The new policy approved in 2022 conceives retail marketing as joint ventures, and in the case of wholesale trade, the creation of joint ventures with 100% foreign capital was authorized.
But one thing is the claims on paper and another, sometimes very different, is the realization of ideas in real life. A year after the rule came into force, the press illustrated the slowness of the process: the Cuban Ministry of Internal Trade had received 52 “business interests” from 18 countries, but only one of them had been approved, according to official sources: the contract of the International Economic Association (AEI) Faibus SA, intended for the online marketing of food products, personal and household hygiene.
In 2024 the panorama has not changed at the speed needed by the Cuban, who was promised that foreign investment in the country’s internal trade would partially resolve the shortage of goods and services and contribute to the decrease in prices. Today, neither one nor the other has been achieved.
Six projects are in the negotiation phase and others are sponsored by the Mincin; In turn, there are goods and services in Consignment, in the province of Havana, and Customs Warehouses, with conventional warehouses in the capital, Cienfuegos and Camagüey; as well as cold storage rooms in Havana, Matanzas, Villa Clara, Holguín and Granma.
“In each of the negotiations we have made clear Cuba’s interest in inserting the national industry in these projects, and it has not been a topic of conflict at all,” said the director of the Industrial Products and Services Marketing Group. All businessmen show their agreement with this and that allows them to reduce costs in the transportation of goods.”
Despite the government’s enthusiasm, citizens still do not perceive the benefits of the legal provisions adopted two years ago, basically because the number of deals concluded is negligible and these, in turn, have a limited scope.
Hence, the country has decided to organize another event to shake up the relatively dormant scene: the III Trade Convention, scheduled for July 8 to 12 at the Havana Convention Palace and at the Pabexpo fairgrounds, which will have scientific spaces for sustainable trade and warehouse logistics, as well as a business forum and an international youth entrepreneurship meeting.
The Ministry of Domestic Trade and the Chamber of Commerce have launched a call to national and foreign professionals and businessmen, producing and marketing entities, universities and study centers, and local governments, to participate in this international event, which will be It will be developed in person and virtually and has as its objectives the exchange of experiences, the updating of knowledge, the validation of good practices that make commercial activity sustainable; publicize services and products, and the opening of various business opportunities.
The effectiveness of this convention and the agility with which new contracts are reached will depend, to a large extent, on the possible oxygenation of trade within the island, severely impacted by the economic crisis that keeps Cubans on the brink of suffocation. walking.
