More than a hundred micro, small and medium-sized private companies (MSMEs) or non-agricultural cooperatives (NAC) have been approved by the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) to establish themselves in Las Tunas.

Las Tunas, Cuba.- At least one of these new economic actors has been approved in each municipality; although the provincial capital accounts for the majority, with 56. In general, they work in sectors as diverse as agriculture, energy, gastronomy, and industry in its different modalities; as well as transportation, computer or personal services, and production of construction materials.

Not all these MSMEs or CNAs have navigated with the same luck in a domestic economic scenario marked by the effects of the U.S. blockade and the armed conflict in Eastern Europe. Only 70 had completed the last step of their incorporation process: the inclusion in the commercial register.

However, local authorities highlight the value of these entities to return the country to the path of growth in production and services indicators.

"Without any doubt, they have come to stay and revitalize the economy, because they have legal personality, which gives them many advantages," said Eduardo Walter Cueli, provincial director of Economy and Planning. To support them, he insisted, there are working groups in all the municipalities. Although it is not, he clarified, a process free of pitfalls that would even compromise the future of several of these undertakings. A Companies Law will be required to consolidate the legality established up to now in this sense, he commented.

Despite the difficulties, he added, the Cuban government continues “looking for new mechanisms so that they can access the currency more quickly and effectively. New mechanisms and supply networks are also being evaluated that can ensure them, perhaps with goods on consignment in our country, supply and a wholesale market in national currency to provide them the minimum necessary resources to guarantee to a certain degree their operations and corporate purpose."

Recently, the deputy prime minister and head of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, declared before the National Assembly of the People's Power that the executive plans within its economic reactivation program for the country "to gradually establish a selective exchange scheme for the sale of foreign currency to state and non-state national suppliers, agreeing with them production levels and prices for their commercialization in Cuban pesos.”