Adrián Segura Tristá looks to the future with optimism after being the first entrepreneur in Las Tunas to whom the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) approved his application to establish a private microenterprise.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- Until now, Segura Tristá, who graduated five years ago from the University of Informatics Sciences, was a self-employee, specialized in making hamburgers. Now, he said, he aspires for his new entity to be a benchmark in fast food service through two establishments located in the Aguilera district, in the vicinity of the El Oriente market, to the west of this city.

At first, he explained, there will be two clerks and a manager in each restaurant. Also, he commented, each facility will be added a room to keep accounting documents, financial statements, and any other auditable information.

On September 20, the Cuban MEP opened the digital platform in which both, state and private applicants, presented their proposals to become micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), or non-agricultural cooperatives (CAN, in Spanish). In the first call, the Ministry gave the green light to 35 that will operate in food production and export, or that are part of local development projects, businesses incubated in science and technology parks; as well as other technology-based, circular economy and recycling.

In that first group was TUHamburguesa, the name with which this young man presented his application. His proposal ranked among the top five in the eastern region, the area of the country from which the fewest proposals were approved.

For the moment, the magnitude of his business, Segura Tristá estimated, does not require him to establish an excessively large economic apparatus, but he does not rule it out in the future. Knowing that the question of suppliers will always be a matter that causes more than a headache, he considered that this openness to entrepreneurship also contributes to diversifying the options in this regard, even beyond the existing state ones.

"In this first list, for example, bread producers were included," he said, referring to the Glez Bakery, located in the province of Artemisa, which declared the production of bread, confectionery, and flour derivatives as its main economic activity. Likewise, he welcomes the recent news on the definition that financial entities could provide credits in freely convertible currency.