• Submitted by: manso
• Business and Economy
• 11 / 30 / 2010

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The government as of Nov. 19 granted more than 29,000 licenses for self-employment since October and more than 80,000 people have expressed interest, according to Communist Party daily Granma.

Retirees make up 43 percent of the new entrepreneurs; 56 percent are not employed otherwise. Twenty percent will offer food-related services.

Some 150,000 Cubans were officially self-employed at the beginning of this year. While the government uses the term “self-employment,” new regulations for the first time allow business owners to hire employees.

In September, Raúl Castro announced the government would grant 250,000 self-employment licenses in 176 new activities, ranging from electrician to street clown. Skeptics assume there will not be a lot of demand from Cubans who have been practicing black-market business for years, because taxes are high and the government cannot provide a wholesale infrastructure for the new businesses.

Phil Peters, vice president of Washington think tank Lexington Institute, wrote in his blog recently that he visited several government offices and saw “lines of applicants, harried officials managing the lines and answering questions, people leaving with licenses in hand, and many citizens intently studying bulletin boards with information about how to apply.”

According to officials questioned by Peters, there are no numerical limits to granting licenses.

Source: www.cubastandard.com/2010/11/29/