‘Apertura’ and Reform of the Cuban Economy: The Institutional Transformations, 1990–93

Abstract

The year 1993 saw the consolidation of a process of economic apertura in Cuba, one of the most important components of a general policy adopted to confront the worst economic crisis experienced by the country in the last 35 years. This process embraces three simultaneous and inter-related phenomena: the accelerated development of international tourism, the reorientation of Cuban foreign trade and the exposure of the economy to foreign investment.

This chapter is a synopsis of a larger, unpublished work under the sanie title. The authors would like to acknowledge the valuable comments provided by Luis Suárez Salazar, Juan Valdés Paz, Tania García, Julio Carranza, Luis Gutiérrez and Rafael Hernández, researchers of the Centro de Estudios sobre América.