Cuba Finally Opens To New Economic Reforms

Cuban Entrepreneurs Open For New Business
Cuban small businessman can now repair broken items on a street in Havana with the full support of the Cuban government. Cuba is launching a series of major economic reforms that will effect the livelihood of all Cubans, including approving a number of small business licensees. Cuba elite communist ministers mapped out a dramatic shift in the new arena of free enterprise in Cuba by approving a huge list of small businesses, allowing ordinary Cubans to hire employees and even promising financing to a new breed of entrepreneurs.

The reforms were printed in the most popular Cuban Newspaper in a three-page spread in the Communist Party-daily Granma which seemed to create a society of haves and have-nots in the island of Cuba that has spent half a century doing everything possible to create an equal utopia.

Last week's announcement that the government will lay off 1,000,000 employees by the end of March is equal to one-tenth of the entire country's workforce and the biggest change in Cuba's economic system since opening of the Cuban economy.

For the first time, Cubans in 98 private businesses will be allowed to hire people other than their relatives, and they will be able to sell their services to the state as private independent contractors.

Accountants in Cuba
Accountants, currently only permitted to work for the state, can set out on their own, keeping the books for these new businesses. Cubans who want to rent their homes to travellers will no longer have to live on the premises and can hire staff. Even islanders authorized to live overseas though apparently not exiles can take part in the economic changes by renting out the cars and homes they leave behind.

Cuba's Central Banking Minister is analyzing a variety of ways to grant small-business financing and  forgivable loans that are crucial to any growing free-market system but which would have been unimaginable in Cuba just a few short weeks ago.

The decision to open up and change the economic rules on private employment in Cuba's economy is one of the steps the country has taken in the redesign of its economic policies in order to cut expenses and increase production and efficiency. Cuba's top newspaper, Granma reported that Economy Minister Marino Murillo Jorge and a vice-minister of labour and social security would oversee the transition of the new cuban economy in the hopes of a brighter future for all Cubans.
FOREIGN INVESTORS IN CUBA
Foreign investors welcomed the news and its another step in the right direction for the Cuban investment climate. Cuban, European and even American investors are now studying the new laws to see where the best opportunities may be uncovered. Other investors sa that its best to get in now right out of the gate to ensure that your future profits are locked in. Either way its going to be a very interesting opportunity for Cubans as they get there first taste of Capitalism and to take hold of their own economic future for the first time in over 4 years.

GOLF INVESTMENT IN CUBA

Varadero Cuba Golf Course In Cuba

CUBA OPEN TO GOLF INVESTMENTS
Cuba is hoping to attract golf-playing tourists to Cuba with the hope of eventually even U.S. golfers. The government took big steps in that direction by allowing foreign investors that enjoy golfing and want to invest in Cuba to lease state lands for 99 years instead of the previous limit of 50 years.

The extension is expected to make Cuba a more attractive place for foreign developers, who already have detailed plans for at least four golf resorts with seven courses — including a $1 billion project.

Some foreign investors have been reluctant to commit to the projects because the 50-year limit was too short and risky, said Antonio Zamora, a Miami lawyer who researches Cuban real estate issues.

"I think most of them will be okay with the 99-year leases, although others have told me they will not do it" without full ownership rights, Zamora said.

The Official Gazette last week published Decree Law 273, signed by Raul Castro on July 19, allowing 99-year leases on properties for foreign investors though the government still owns the land. The previous limit set in 1987 was 50 years, though renewals were allowed.

Still unclear are many issues, such as the right to sell or inherit the properties built on the leased state lands.

The Cuban government owns the overwhelming majority of the land on the island, though some Cubans who owned small properties before the Castro revolution in 1959 have been allowed to keep them.

But the decision by Castro, who also has been allowing small but growing doses of private enterprise by Cubans, could give a quick boost to tourism development plans.

The U.S. Congress is considering legislation that would lift the ban on tourism travel to Cuba, and the Obama administration is expected to allow a growing number of educational and cultural trips to the island.

Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero announced in August that the government had approved the creation of 16 golf resorts, ringed by thousands of condos and villas to be sold only to foreigners.

Cuba has only one 18-hole course and one nine-hole course, while the Dominican Republic has two dozen.

Foreign developers are already well along on proposals for four golf resorts on Cuba's north coast, including the estimated $1 billion La Altura mega-project in Bahia Honda west of Havana.

The project, proposed by British and Spanish developers, calls for three golf courses surrounded by about 3,000 housing units and a marina with 200 slips, according to documents obtained by El Nuevo Herald.

Another group is proposing two golf courses with about 2,000 housing units in the Guardalavaca beach area in Holguin province.

In the Varadero beach resort 100 miles east of Havana, British groups are proposing one development with a golf course and about 900 housing units.

The Bellomonte project on Guanabo beach, just east of Havana, calls for about 800 units ringing one golf course, plus a small marina.

Cuba recorded 2.4 million foreign tourists last year, a slight increase over 2008, although revenues have been falling as the euro and British pound lost value and a growing number of visiting Cuban exiles chose to stay with relatives.

The government first allowed foreigners to invest in an estimated 17 luxury condominium developments in Havana in 1995, but then-President Fidel Castro later halted the building program.

Many of the condo buildings were on or near Havana's Fifth Avenue, the main thoroughfare in Miramar, the capital's fanciest neighborhood before Castro seized power in 1959.