Recent Cuban govt announcements about economic moves have left me with a wait-and-see attitude. Lots of intentions, few specifics, no time-line, and heavy complaining (I don’t blame them!) about U.S. sanctions.

The key question is political and only the measures themselves will answer it, as they are rolled out: whether the balance has shifted against the faction that stopped the implementation of agreed reforms while Raul Castro was still in office.

A good sign in this regard is last night’s announcement on trabajo por cuenta propia (self-employment/entrepreneurship), barely covered in Cuban media as a minor part of the labor minister’s TV presentation.

People will now apply for business licenses based on their ideas, the licensing criteria being that the line of work, capital, and supplies be lawful. The list of allowed occupations will be scrapped, the minister explained, because it is “limiting”...

...and “does not encourage the development of the innate creativity that Cubans have.” She noted that entrepreneurs designed, then joined with state industry to produce protective gear for health workers. Others are proposing to produce products that Cuba now has to import.

The action may seem small but it’s a conceptual shift for the bureaucracy, from planning this part of the economy to regulating it as a market. Hope it turns out as it sounds. And let’s hope a similar shift occurs when they get to farm policy.