Cuba Details New Policies on Budding Entrepreneurs
By ELISABETH MALKIN
Published: September 24, 2010
MEXICO CITY — Cubans learned on Friday the details of what they would soon be able to do as budding entrepreneurs, including renting spaces for their businesses, hanging out a shingle, and if things go well, hiring a few employees.
The Communist Party newspaper Granma published details of Cuba’s new regulations on self-employment, clearing a thicket of restrictions that had virtually choked off the country’s minuscule private sector.
“It’s going to be a different kind of socialism,” said Ted Henken, an expert on the Cuban private sector at Baruch College of the City University of New York. The new policies could “let out all of these natural impulses to network, to contract out, to be efficient and productive.”
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Cubans will be allowed to work privately as carpenters or party clowns; they will be allowed to repair computers or give music lessons. They can repair jewelry and carry passengers on their own boats. Under the new rules, they can also begin to set up their own food businesses or workshops to make shoes.
They may even be able to get loans to do it. The article highlighted that the Central Bank of Cuba was studying how to make small-business loans available.
More:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/25/world/americas/25cuba.html?_r=1&ref=americas