The media doesn’t say much about this news. We wonder why.

A desperate communist Cuba approved major economic reforms expanding the private sector, banking, and property rights, as the US sanctions add to its already severe crisis.

The Story

Cuba’s National Assembly approved a historic package of 176 market-oriented reforms, marking the island’s most significant economic shift since the 1959 revolution. The reforms are designed to rescue a crumbling economy. The measures decentralize state operations, permit private banks, and remove the state mandate for foreign joint ventures. They lift employee caps on private firms, Reuters reports.

The 176 measures aim to further decentralize Cuba’s state-run economy. Sanctions have left them struggling under a tightened embargo under President Donald Trump. Under communism, the government largely determines what is produced and who produces it. The government decides the prices at which goods are sold, and how the country’s resources are allocated, according to PBS.

The plan includes more space for private businesses, imports and exports without state intermediation, free hiring of personnel, authorization for private banks, and investment by Cubans abroad. It even permits fast-food chains to establish themselves on the island.

According to Euronews, the measures were presented by the prime minister, Manuel Marrero, during a parliamentary session at which a reduction in the state’s role in a range of economic activities was announced. Among the changes is the scrapping of the requirement for foreign investors to partner with state-owned companies, the authorization of large private firms, and the possibility for domestic and foreign investors to acquire stakes in state-owned enterprises.

The reforms were approved unanimously in Parliament. At the end of the session, President Miguel Díaz-Canel, a hardline communist, reiterated his government’s commitment to the socialist system.

This, however, is a big step for the impoverished country.