Cuba loosens control of its private sector in a struggle with a mounting humanitarian crisis

In an ef­fort to fend off a mount­ing hu­man­i­tar­i­an cri­sis, Cu­ba on Wednes­day eased up on long­time re­stric­tions on pri­vate ven­dors and im­ports, open­ing up a sec­tor firm­ly con­trolled by the Com­mu­nist-led gov­ern­ment.

The re­forms would al­low for the im­port and re­sale of some goods and med­i­cines from oth­er coun­tries, loosen re­stric­tions on oil ex­trac­tion for for­eign com­pa­nies and im­ple­ment oth­er changes at a time when the coun­try is plagued by med­ical and en­er­gy short­ages.

While pri­vate en­ter­prise has slow­ly opened in re­cent years, many sales on the coun­try’s in­for­mal mar­ket have long ex­ist­ed in a grey area — not tech­ni­cal­ly le­gal but wide­ly used by Cubans strug­gling to sur­vive the day-to-day hard­ships.

The mea­sures, which were ap­proved by the par­lia­ment last month and went in­to ef­fect on Wednes­day, are ex­pect­ed to bring about a sig­nif­i­cant shift on the is­land, where the econ­o­my and in­dus­try have been strict­ly con­trolled by the gov­ern­ment since the 1960s.

The re­forms come as Cu­ba has been pushed to the brink by an oil block­ade im­posed by the Unit­ed States in Jan­u­ary. The move by the Trump ad­min­is­tra­tion, meant to put pres­sure on the gov­ern­ment, wors­ened al­ready crip­pling black­outs, cut work­ers off from pub­lic trans­port, crip­pled in­fra­struc­ture and deep­ened short­ages in med­i­cine and food.

Last month, Cuban Pres­i­dent Miguel Díaz-Canel said the re­forms were nec­es­sary be­cause the coun­try “sim­ply can­not con­tin­ue on its cur­rent course.”

In to­tal, the gov­ern­ment said it was re­mov­ing 46 of the 125 pro­hi­bi­tions it had on pri­vate in­dus­try and re­laxed 35 oth­er reg­u­la­tions.

Still, many bans re­main in place — to­bac­co pro­duc­tion, long a sta­ple of the Caribbean is­land, would re­main in state hands. So would in­ter­net ac­cess, news­pa­per pub­lish­ing and ra­dio broad­cast­ing.

The eas­ing of re­stric­tions ap­peared to tar­get spe­cif­ic ar­eas hard­est hit by the on­go­ing cri­sis.

Med­i­cines, large­ly pur­chased through mas­sive groups on apps like Telegram and What­sApp on the in­for­mal mar­ket, would now al­so be sold by pri­vate phar­ma­cies. Shelves in state-owned phar­ma­cies sell­ing sub­si­dized med­i­cine are of­ten emp­ty.

Many wel­comed the loos­en­ing of the re­stric­tions.

An image of Fidel Castro hangs on the wall of a state-run pharmacy where a woman asks for medication in Havana, Cuba, Wednesday, July 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

Ramon Espinosa

Fran­cis­co Car­ba­jal, a 71-year-old re­tiree who suf­fers from seizures, said it gives him hope things would im­prove.

“What I re­al­ly want is that there are med­ica­tions avail­able, be­cause I have di­a­bet­ic neu­ropa­thy and car­ba­mazepine hasn’t ar­rived at my phar­ma­cy in a long time,” he said as he sat on a street in Ha­vana, the cap­i­tal. “With­out it, I’m help­less, be­cause I get epilep­tic seizures.”

The gov­ern­ment al­so gave the green light for pri­vate care fa­cil­i­ties for el­der­ly Cubans — many young Cubans who would have tra­di­tion­al­ly cared for their ag­ing rel­a­tives have mi­grat­ed abroad.

The new mea­sures would al­so make it eas­i­er to im­port elec­tric ve­hi­cles, which are rapid­ly be­com­ing a cru­cial al­ter­na­tive to get around the is­land where the pub­lic trans­port sys­tem has large­ly col­lapsed due to gaso­line short­ages.

Re­stric­tions will al­so ease on Cu­ba’s de­cay­ing oil sec­tor, mak­ing it eas­i­er for for­eign in­vestors and pri­vate busi­ness­es.

Cu­ba’s gov­ern­ment had al­ready made moves to loosen re­stric­tions on pri­vate in­dus­try over the last few decades.

Cubans were al­lowed to seek self-em­ploy­ment and in a mas­sive shift in 2021 — af­ter the tourism-dri­ven econ­o­my was roiled by the coro­n­avirus pan­dem­ic and a mi­gra­to­ry flight from the is­land be­gan to pick up — au­thor­i­ties al­lowed the cre­ation of small busi­ness­es.

These lat­est re­forms “tru­ly al­low and fa­cil­i­tate the par­tic­i­pa­tion of non-state eco­nom­ic ac­tors in the coun­try’s econ­o­my,” said Lázara Mer­cedes López Acea, pres­i­dent of the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of Non-State Eco­nom­ic Ac­tors, who pre­sent­ed the new reg­u­la­tions. — HA­VANA (AP)

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Sto­ry by AN­DREA RO­DRÍGUEZ and ARIEL FER­NÁN­DEZ | As­so­ci­at­ed Press