02 December 2024

Officials appearing on Cuban state television have made clear that the recently established National Institute of Non-State Economic Actors (INAEE) is intended to control and direct Cuba’s embryonic private sector.

Aizel Llanes Fernández, the Director of the National Institute of Economic Research, speaking on the television programme Mesa Redonda, said that the creation of the INAEE is “based on research into the need for its existence” and came “at the request of non-state actors, who required an entity to represent them.” 

Describing it as a “common entity” seen in many countries in the region, Europe, and Asia, she told viewers that “It is an institution that is not only focused on control, but also has a job to promote and strengthen capacities.”

Speaking on the same programme, Mercedes López, the President of the INAEE told viewers that the entity is in charge of directing and controlling state policy in relation to  the development and operation of non-state MSMES, self-employed workers (CNA), and non-agricultural cooperatives (TCP). It has, she said, a President and Vice President, and five fundamental directorates: the first three to oversee MSMES, CNA and TCP, one for inspection, and another for development, science, and innovation.

“The fundamental objective,” she said, “is to continue promoting these non-state economic actors, complying with regulations, promoting relations with the rest of the actors, and their inclusion in territorial development strategies.”

Denying this constituted a step backwards, she told listeners that it is quite the opposite. “The regulation we are proposing is accompanied by the interest in improving and increasing contractual relations between all economic actors,” she said.

Highlights in this issue: 

• Cuba’s President makes first public comments on outcome of US elections
• All private and foreign companies must provide 50% of own power by 2028
• Deputy Prime Minister discusses small modular reactors for power generation with IAEA
• Russia publishes amended details of planned upgrades to Cuban power plants
• Details of commercial biotech venture in China published

Speaking abouts the INAEE’s functions, López stressed that a central role “is to  coordinate and evaluate, with the agencies of the Central State Administration and national entities, policy proposals related to non-state economic actors” in the areas of its competence.” It will also, she added, control compliance with the regulatory provisions relating to the implementation of state policy and ensure the insertion of non-state actors into Cuba’s decentralised  territorial economic and social development strategy. As such, it will also work closely with the provincial and municipal bodies that now have decentralised responsibility for achieving positive regional economic outcomes by state and non-state companies.

“In this mission”, she said, “we have to observe and ensure that the approval process for non-state economic actors is carried out correctly,” with the priority being given to “the person who applies and their interest in creating an MSME, and, secondly, what these actors mean for the territories, what they can contribute.”

In the short term, the INAEE says, it will develop “a constant exchange programme with economic actors which will begin with MSMES dedicated to marketing (selling goods), and similar activities, then moving on to partners and Presidents of (state) MSMEs in the Ministry of Industries.”

Cuban officials say that  in 2023 there were 4.3mn Cubans in employment of whom 38% worked in the non-state sector. At the end of August this year, there were 0.62mn  self-employed workers and more than 0.14mn linked to MSMES and Non-Agricultural Cooperatives. They also say that of the “more than 135,000 people” who have recently  joined the workforce and who had no other employment option available, more than 40% went directly into the non-state sector, “improving the lives of their families.”

The new entities intended work plan, and government’s stress on the direction and integration of state-with non state economic enterprise, make clear that rather than supporting the creation of a market- driven socially-regulated private-public sector, the INAEE is about largely about centralised bureaucratic control and direction. The INAEE (El Instituto Nacional de Actores Económico No Estatales) is subordinate to Cuba’s Council of Ministers. ncy levels. In March this year ONEI reported that in 2023 they stood at just 25%, a very low figure by Caribbean standards, or make any mention of key performance statistics such as revenue per available room, a profitability measure commonly used by the industry internationally. (See Cuba Briefing 11 March 2024)

02 December 2024, Issue 1259

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