Cuban Government Opens Doors for Private Companies to Make Financial Investments for the First Time

In an unprecedented move, the Cuban government declared on Thursday its intention to allow and promote financial investments by private companies. This landmark decision was introduced during a special session of the National Assembly of People's Power, which was broadcast live on Canal Caribe.

This policy, listed as measure 12 in the official package, explicitly states: “Authorize and encourage companies (including private enterprises) to undertake financial investments.”

Complementing this shift, measure 13 mandates the "design of financial instruments that enable the capitalization of companies without involving the state's budget," implicitly acknowledging the exhaustion of the centralized public funding model.

A third measure, number 14, calls for the implementation of a National Program for the Valuation and Titling of State-Owned Business Assets. This program would conduct a national inventory of tangible and intangible assets with market valuation, issue property certificates that can serve as bank loan collateral, and allow state enterprises to monetize underutilized assets through long-term leasing to various economic actors and foreign investors.

Transformational Shift in Cuban Economic Policy

Historically, Cuban private enterprises—such as small and medium-sized businesses, non-agricultural cooperatives, and self-employed workers—could only access credit in Cuban pesos for working capital, facing strict limitations on foreign currency financing.

They were not permitted to make financial investments per se, nor were there capitalization instruments outside of state budget support.

The complete package consists of over 20 economic and social measures, introduced by Miguel Díaz-Canel amidst the most severe crisis Cuba has faced since the Special Period of the 1990s. The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) reported a 6.5% decline in Cuba’s GDP in 2026, with a cumulative contraction of 10.3% over 2025-2026.

Urgent Reforms Amid Economic Crisis

Díaz-Canel himself conceded during the session that creative resistance alone is no longer adequate to tackle the situation. "There are obstacles not arising from external forces or the embargo," he admitted, in a rare acknowledgment of the internal structural issues within the model. He also issued a rallying cry that encapsulated the day's urgent tone: "Enough of explaining the crisis, we must change."

The approval process was expedited: Díaz-Canel presented the economic emergency agenda on June 12, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba endorsed the package in an extraordinary plenary on June 17, and the National Assembly addressed it in a special session this Thursday.

The package also includes the removal of price caps, the end of mandatory intermediation in foreign trade, greater wage and exchange rate autonomy for state enterprises, openness to direct foreign investment in the private sector—including small and medium-sized enterprises—and a reduction in ministries from 27 to between 20 and 21.

In March 2026, the government had already taken a preliminary step by announcing that Cubans residing abroad could invest in private companies under Foreign Investment Law 118, including the creation of non-bank financial institutions and participation in investment funds with authorization from the Central Bank of Cuba.

Economist Pedro Monreal had previously warned that the newly established National Institute of State Business Assets (INAEES)—an entity designed to manage over 2,000 state companies—might become the "grave digger" of the state enterprise system, signaling that the reforms are generating both anticipation and skepticism among critics of the model.