Cuba --so were going to open up diplomatic regulations with them? Drop sanctions? Be buddies? Maybe youd like to visit, vacation there, or maybe a honeymoon in the socialist paradise? Here are some facts to consider: Cuba – world rank (there are about 190 countries int he world) GDP – 68 GDP real growth – 112 GDP per capita – 118 Gross national saving – 118 Info: The government continues to balance the need for loosening its socialist economic system against a desire for firm political control. The government in April 2011 held the first Cuban Communist Party Congress in almost 13 years, during which leaders approved a plan for wide-ranging economic changes. Since then, the Cuban government has slowly and incrementally implemented limited economic reforms, including allowing Cubans to buy electronic appliances and cell phones, stay in hotels, and buy and sell used cars. The Cuban government also opened up some retail services to self-employment, leading to the rise of so-called cuentapropistas or entrepreneurs. Recent moves include permitting the private ownership and sale of real estate and new vehicles, allowing private farmers to sell agricultural goods directly to hotels, and expanding categories of self-employment. Despite these reforms, the average Cubans standard of living remains at a lower level than before the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting downturn of the 1990s. Since late 2000, Venezuela has been providing oil on preferential terms, and it currently supplies over 100,000 barrels per day of petroleum products. Cuba has been paying for the oil, in part, with the services of Cuban personnel in Venezuela, including some 30,000 medical professionals. (Source: cia.gov, world factbook) Index of Economic Freedom, Heritage foundation Score: 28.7 out of 100 World Rank – 177, near the bottom of the repressed category. Info: Cuba’s economic freedom score is 28.7, making its economy one of the world’s least free. Its overall score is 0.2 point higher than last year, with deteriorations in trade freedom, fiscal freedom, monetary freedom, and freedom from corruption counterbalanced by an improvement in business freedom. Cuba is ranked least free of 29 countries in the South and Central America/Caribbean region, and its overall score is significantly lower than the regional average. Over the 20-year history of the Index, Cuba’s economic freedom has been stagnant near the bottom of the “repressed” category. Its overall score improvement has been less than 1 point over the past two decades, with score gains in fiscal freedom and freedom from corruption offset by double-digit declines in business freedom and investment freedom. Despite some progress in restructuring the state sector since 2010, the private sector remains constrained by heavy regulations and tight state controls. Open-market policies are not in place to spur growth in trade and investment, and the lack of competition continues to stifle dynamic economic expansion. A watered-down reform package endorsed by the Cuban Communist Party has trimmed the number of state workers and expanded the list of approved professions, but many details of the reform remain obscure. Source: heritage.org/index
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 20:26:31 +0000
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