The conference rooms of Havana’s ministries have been unusually busy. Tourism officials, healthcare delegations, aviation representatives and mining executives have been cycling through back-to-back meetings with investors from the Gulf, Europe, North America, Africa and elsewhere.
Cuba, for the first time in decades, is pitching itself to the world amid what it calls a tipping point for its economy.
“We are at a particularly special moment because those transformations have accelerated,” Carlos Mendez, Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Investment, told The National. He was speaking in the government’s first media interview, alongside Raul Castro – better known as Raulito – the grandson of former president Raul Castro and great-nephew of Fidel Castro.
“We are giving greater participation to the private sector within the economy, not only by opening more activities to private entrepreneurship, not only with the space given to foreign investment in practically all sectors of the economy, but also by creating a business environment that is more favourable and can be more competitive on the international stage,” said Mr Mendez.
That momentum gained urgency on Thursday, when Cuba's Communist Party approved an emergency economic package featuring unprecedented free-market measures that aim to expand private enterprise, granting greater autonomy to municipalities and state companies, and to open new doors to foreign investment.
Deals across major sectors
The scope of what has been signed-off in recent weeks is telling. Ahmed Faisal, an Egyptian-born business consultant and chief executive of Dubai's Ali Abdulla Bin Haidar Group, has stood out as a quiet intermediary between the Cuban government and international investors. Described by Cuban officials and businesspeople as “the architect”, he called the moment historic because of the volume of deals being negotiated for a post-sanctions Cuba.
“Tourism: two MoUs [memorandums of understanding]. Aviation: one. Health care: one. Pharmaceutical: one,” he said. “We have another three in progress regarding minerals, mining, fertilisers, another one for tourism, another one for ports, and another one for fishing,” Mr Faisal said.
In tourism, Ali bin Haidar, chairman of Abdulla Ali bin Haidar Group, signed a letter of intent with the Cuban government for land on Santa Maria Island to build a luxury resort. The project could be named Trump Island if negotiations with the Trump Organisation are successful. Early renderings depict twin gold-domed towers, although no deal has yet been signed.
In mining, Egypt’s Mag Group signed an agreement with Cuba’s state mining entity CCN, focused on the Cajalpana project in Pinar del Río Province. Under the agreement, Mag will send a technical delegation to assess geological resources and infrastructure, with CCN assisting with site access and arranging meetings with officials from Cubanquel and the Ministry of Energy and Mines. A joint venture structure would follow if the evaluation proceeds.
“If sanctions are lifted, Cuba will need substantial investment across many sectors,” Mohamed Atta Gad, Mag’s chairman, said. “It is, in many ways, an untapped market with enormous potential.”
Yet he was candid about the biggest obstacle. “Honestly, the procedures are very smooth and flexible. The only major obstacle is the US sanctions,” he said.
Ministerial meetings have also taken place in sectors including oil and gas, health care and major infrastructure. Cuba’s ambassador to the UAE, Norberto Escalona Carrillo, confirmed continuing medical co-operation with Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
The island is also pushing hard on mining: its nickel reserves are estimated to be the world's fifth-largest, and it is seeking partners with the technical expertise to develop them.
What changed?
For the Cuban government, the transformation requires careful framing. Mr Mendez was explicit: “I would like to clarify that we are not privatising the economy. What we are doing is giving greater participation to the private sector in the economy, in practically all sectors.
“There is no specific percentage [that is being privatised]. We are not defining that one part must be private and another must be state-run.”
He was equally direct on political changes: “We are not willing to transform the Cuban political system. That is off the table.”
Mr Faisal found that framing understandable, if challenging. A generation of Cuban officials was formed inside a system that defined itself in opposition to private capital, and that formation does not disappear overnight, however urgent the economic necessity. “No, we are not privatising, we are modernising. It's the same thing,” Mr Faisal said, adding that the ministers he worked with were competent and committed to their country.
One of the most significant structural questions hanging over Cuba's opening is the role of GAESA, the military conglomerate estimated to control between 40 and 70 per cent of the Cuban economy, and which the US has directly targeted with sanctions. Asked whether that would change, Mr Méndez did not single out GAESA by name. “We do not believe the issue is to review any particular business group or entity,” he said.
“We believe we must develop this transformation process across the entire economy, in all sectors. And part of that transformation involves the private sector having greater participation in the management and ownership of some of those state assets.”
The structural changes being introduced are nonetheless real, he said. Since 2021, more than 11,000 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) have been approved. Cuba's private sector now accounts for 31 per cent of employment, 55 per cent of retail trade and 23 per cent of tax revenue, according to the Cuba Study Group Private Sector Report 2025.
Mr Mendez pointed to new measures including allowing MSMEs to partner with state enterprises and enabling Cubans living abroad to invest through foreign investment frameworks. He said the measures were designed to create a more efficient business environment that will reduce risk and build investor confidence while encouraging entrepreneurship.
“What we are doing … this is not a future plan, it is what's already happening – is advancing in streamlining the business approval processes, advancing in decentralising the approval powers,” he said. A single-window system for foreign investors is already operational and being modernised with automated processing. A parallel mechanism for domestic private actors is being built alongside it. “Our intention is for them to function according to international standards through single-window mechanisms – a one-stop shop – so that the application processes can be carried out in a single place,” Mr Mendez said.
Demonstrating the seriousness of Cuba's shift, he offered a welcome move on the properties of Cuban Americans previously taken by the state: “We are willing to seek an agreement … that is satisfactory for all parties, considering both the foreign companies that were in Cuba and were nationalised, and also seeking arrangements that can be acceptable for Cubans who at some point emigrated from the country.”
Asked whether he, as a representative of a younger generation of Cuban leaders, was facing resistance from those who wanted to keep the old ways, Raulito was direct. “We are a group of young leaders who today hold high responsibilities in the direction of the Cuban government under the leadership of Army General Raul Castro Ruz and President Miguel Diaz-Canel Bermudez, accompanied by a broad group of colleagues of different ages and generations, all of whom have their gaze fixed on a central point: the well-being of the Cuban people,” he said.
“So what is our responsibility? To implement them with agility. That is also a responsibility we have as a generation – to take advantage of this integration of different generations, of the historical generation with the new generations, to carry forward this transformation process.”
Economy not captured by statistics
To understand what change means at the street level, a Havana businessman who asked not to be named shared his experience. He has built a livelihood operating in the space between what the state permits and what people actually need, highlighting that Cuba’s informal economy is where most people operate.
“That’s more than the [formal] economy, it’s a bigger chunk of the economy,” he said, adding that average salaries run to roughly $20 a month, while basic goods cost more than they do in the US.
The Cuban peso has gone from 120 to the dollar two years ago to more than 600, and that number is still rising, he said. Taxes are so high that “everybody cheats”. Operating legitimately, he said, was simply impossible. Before January 2026 and the tightening US oil blockade, he estimated that 70 per cent of Cuba’s economic difficulties were domestic in origin.
He believes the government genuinely wants to change, and that these new reforms are encouraging. “I think they are in the right way now … but they really need to change the mindset … or nothing will work,” he said.
Speaking about Raulito, he said: “He’s willing, he's really willing, [and] he’s fighting [hard], but it’s not easy in this country, even if you have the power.”
The resistance, he said, does not come from the Cubans. “Ninety-nine per cent” of people want change, he said, but the main opposition comes from traditionalists within the political class, he added.
Crisis and opportunity
The numbers reflecting the well-being of Cuba's economy are severe. A confidential strategic assessment prepared for a presidential delegation in March 2026 and seen by The National projects that GDP will contract by 7.2 per cent in 2026, following a 5 per cent contraction in 2025.
This is a cumulative decline of roughly 23 per cent since 2019, according to the report. More than a million Cubans left the country between 2021 and 2025, reducing the population by more than 13 per cent since 2015. The average state salary is less than $13 a month at the informal exchange rate. A carton of 30 eggs now costs more than 3,000 pesos, more than a full month's pension.
This was especially the case after heightened US sanctions early this year. “Breakfast ingredients like eggs and coffee [have become] 50 per cent more expensive since January,” said Caridad Morales, host of the Elvira Mi Amor hotel in Havana. She said the hotel's occupancy has dropped to three out of 11 rooms compared to last year due to lack of tourists, a ban on digital payments and continuous power cuts.
At the root of everything is energy. The national grid has suffered three complete island-wide blackouts in four months. US pressure eliminated Venezuelan oil supply in January and Mexican Pemex deliveries shortly after, cutting total fuel imports by an estimated 90 per cent.
Cuba needs roughly 100,000 barrels a day of oil to maintain basic services and is receiving virtually none. Surgery has been postponed for tens of thousands of patients; hospitals operate without reliable power for refrigeration or surgical lighting; sugar production fell below 200,000 metric tonnes in 2025, its lowest in more than 200 years.
The assessment is direct: “The single most important variable in Cuba's trajectory is the restoration of reliable energy supply. Every other sector – food, health care, water, employment – cascades from energy,” the report states.
Yet the same document maps what it calls a once-in-a-generation opportunity. Cuba has 6.7 million hectares of arable land, significant pharmaceutical and biotech research and development capacity, an underdeveloped coastline and exclusive economic zone, and the Mariel Special Economic Zone as an existing investment framework. This with a backdrop of an estimated infrastructure gap of more than $23 billion. Investment opportunities range from emergency solar deployment ($150 million to $500 million) to grid modernisation ($2 billion to $4 billion), agribusiness revival, pharmaceutical joint ventures, port infrastructure and telecoms.
“The inflection point is now,” the report said. On March 13, 2026, President Diaz-Canel publicly confirmed diplomatic talks with Washington on the energy blockade, a historic first acknowledgement, and Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga declared that Cuba was “open to trading” with US companies, the clearest such invitation in decades.
What experts say
Ricardo Torres Perez, author of the Cuba Study Group’s 2025 report and a professor at American University, said the country's reform push is genuine but that the state keeps undercutting it, commenting on Cuba’s economic policy before its economic transformation strategy.
“Cuba’s government has proved to be very inflexible when it comes to its economic model. Instead of advancing meaningful reform at home, they chose to find a new provider, a new partner overseas.” Venezuela deferred the reckoning; it did not resolve it.
This was the main point highlighted by Raulito in his interview.
“Army General Raul Castro projected that Cuba must not repeat the mistakes of the past and must not depend, in economic matters, on any single product or any single country,” he said.
Helen Yaffe, a professor of Latin American political economy at the University of Glasgow, said a transformation will be impossible without the removal of US sanctions. If you put the letters C-U-B-A in a bank transaction anywhere, she explained, the payment is blocked.
“Blaming Cuba for inefficiencies is like saying you don’t know how to swim when you’ve tied them up … to a rock in the bottom of the river,” she said.
William LeoGrande, a professor of government at American University, framed the crisis as exponentially exacerbating Cuba’s calamity: the sanctions compound mismanagement, and mismanagement magnifies the damage of sanctions.
On Washington’s intentions, Mr LeoGrande said: “I think the real reason is that we [the US] just want Cuba back. I mean, we just want hegemony over the island.”
Arturo Lopez Levy, a research fellow at Georgia College, went further on US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s position as a Cuban-American whose political career banked on taking down the Castro family. “He’s against the people who are in power on the island, even if they do everything he said is necessary. He’s not going to make an agreement with them, in my view.”
On the streets of Havana, where the peso loses value daily and power cuts can run for 22 hours, the execution of these plans will be the greatest challenge. Whether the deals now being signed become the foundation of a genuine opening will depend on decisions far beyond Cuba’s borders. As an unnamed businessman put it: “If they don’t do this, this country will be down like never before.”
