Cuba Hands Fuel and Pharmacies to Private Firms, Which Is a Measure of How Bad Things Are

Cuba has opened a set of strategically sensitive sectors to private operators, in a decree signed by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz on 22 July and taking effect on 4 August. Fuel distribution, the manufacture and sale of medicines, optical and care services, waste collection, electricity generation, port and passenger terminals and vehicle imports are all covered, with private micro, small and medium enterprises and non agricultural cooperatives able to operate under state licence.

The list is the story. Havana has spent several years widening the space for small private business, but it held on to fuel, medicine and power, which are the sectors that most visibly define whether a state is delivering. Handing them over is less a doctrinal shift than an admission that the state distribution networks can no longer keep them running.

The context is a supply crisis residents feel daily. Rolling blackouts, water cuts and shortages of food and medicine have become normal conditions, aggravated by a de facto fuel embargo that has left the island short of imported energy. Private operators are being invited in because they can source, improvise and pay in ways state enterprises cannot.

Whether that works depends on inputs rather than permission. A licensed private pharmacy still needs medicines to sell and a licensed fuel distributor still needs fuel to distribute, and both need hard currency to buy either. The decree changes who is allowed to trade, not what there is to trade, and the second problem is the one that has been binding.