As Cuba turns page on Castro era, economic reform gains urgency

The Cuban government outlined its planned economic reforms in 2011, but a decade later, implementation has been slow and the country is confronting new and dire challenges along with historic ones. “Economic policymaking, by and large, is in the hands of people who have been there for 20 years or more.” Investors, analysts and Cuban citizens will all be watching this weekend’s congress closely — and seeing how many more of the country’s so-called “historic generation” actually depart, as Castro has. To show he is serious about tackling the country’s economic woes, what Diaz-Canel “needs to do is assemble a new, vigorous, younger, coherent team of economic decision-makers,” Feinberg said. Faced with the cash crunch, the Cuban government reallowed “dollar stores” last year that let people buy goods like food, toiletries and electronics with bank cards loaded with US dollars or other foreign currency. “The regime has, since Castro’s time, used the American embargo, which they call a blockade, as the kind of reductionist explanation for every single problem on the island,” Brennan told Al Jazeera, arguing that the country’s economic model was “doomed from the get-go.” Still, Brennan believes ditching the embargo and pursuing “complete and utter sheer openness” would get the US more results.