Cuban Communists Under Pressure To Accelerate Economic Reforms

• Retiring Cuban Communist Party leader Raul Castro promised a decade ago he would transform the Soviet-style command economy into a more mixed and market-driven one “without haste and without pause.”
• Now, with the Caribbean country in crisis and even the most basic goods in short supply, the party is under pressure to act faster as it convenes this weekend for its eighth congress since the 1959 Revolution.
• The April 16-19 congress comes as Cubans battle worsening shortages of basic goods, including food and medicine. An economic crisis has been exacerbated by a tightening of decades-old U.S. sanctions and the coronavirus pandemic.
• A long-time European investor in Cuba agreed, saying the government needed to push ahead with reforms to improve competitiveness, including the further devaluation of the peso currency, liberalization of agriculture, and greater incorporation of small- and medium-sized companies into the economy.

(Source: Reuters)