Cuba’s Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) has approved 112 applications for the creation of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, reaching more than 6,000 private organizations since the regulations allowing this came into force a year and a half ago.
«The MEP today approved 112 applications from private MSMEs. With this decision, there are now 6,273 economic actors approved since the process began in September 2021. Of these, 6138 are private MSMEs, 75 state MSMEs and 60 non-agricultural cooperatives,» the Cuban government detailed in a statement.
Of the total number of SMEs, 52 percent are reconversions of pre-existing businesses and 48 percent correspond to new enterprises, according to MEP data.
A year and a half after the entry into force of the legal norms that included the end of the experiment of non-agricultural cooperatives and that allowed the creation of private companies for the first time since 1968, Cuba already has more than 6,000 of these MSMEs, according to data from the Executive.
The Cuban government defines these companies as «economic units with legal personality, which have their own dimensions and characteristics, and whose objective is to develop the production of goods and the provision of services that satisfy the needs of society».
It also establishes that MSMEs may be state-owned, private or mixed. The small ones may have a maximum of ten members, the small ones, 35, and the large ones, up to 100 people.
The companies will also be authorized to export and import in accordance with the provisions of current legislation and to fix the prices of their services and goods, except for those that are subject to centralized approval.
The measures were framed in the context of the growing economic crisis in the Caribbean country, which experienced an 11 percent contraction of GDP in 2020 as a consequence of the pandemic.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
