Cuba’s boom in small enterprise has given new jobs to nearly 300,000 workers since 2010. There are now 436,000 working in this sector, one part of a growing private sector that includes private farmers and a growing number of private non-farm cooperatives. (Last week, 73 new cooperatives were created, 41 of which were formerly state enterprises and 32 are start-ups created by citizens who joined together and filed an application to create a cooperative.)
Apart from new restaurants and cafeterias, small-scale
stores are one of the most visible changes that one sees all around. Taking advantage of connections abroad, and
now taking advantage of their ability to travel abroad, many entrepreneurs set
up places where they sell imported merchandise.
An example is shown in the photo above, taken in June in Havana – a
typical front-porch store with hundreds of garments flown in from Miami.
For stores like these, the party seems to be over as the
state is re-asserting its role as the sole importer. Entrepreneurs with licenses as seamstress or
tailor will no longer be permitted to sell imported goods, which will likely
return things to where they were before – a much smaller-scale business where
people sell person-to-person, not in streetfront stores often set up in porches
or rooms rented from someone whose house is in a good location. The government is also moving to end the
resale of hardware items and other goods bought in state stores.
With that step back, there’s also a step forward.
New regulations issued last week expanded the list of
approved lines of work to 201. Among the
18 new ones are real estate agent, farm produce wholesaler, and building construction
and repair – all activities that have been going on already, but now can be
licensed in the open.
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