Cuba to enact new foreign investment law
Date
12/21/2013 9:01:22 PM
(MENAFN- AFP) Cuba will approve a new foreign investment law in March, President Raul Castro said Saturday, without elaborating on specific changes.
The country's National Assembly will be convened "in March for a special session to handle this issue and others," the president, 82, said at the closing session of the legislature.
Foreign direct investment "is of unparalleled importance to energize the country's social and economic development," Castro said.
Yet it has been the isolated, cash-strapped nation's Soviet-style economic organization and Castro's decision not to make deep, far-reaching economic reforms like China has, that have kept Cuba straining to stay afloat.
The Americas' only Communist country is propped up by oil subsidies and billions of dollars in support from its socialist ally Venezuela, but cannot get normal access to international credit.
Cuba under Raul Castro has cut back on bureaucratic bloat and increased the number of sectors that self-employed people can work in.
But it has done nothing to ease up on government control of most of the crippled economy in the nation of 11 million where the average monthly salary is under $20.
The country is deeply suspicious of people earning widely different salaries, for fear they cannot coexist in the communist nation without fostering social strains.
The current foreign investment law was passed in 1995, and envisions foreign investment in partnerships with state businesses.
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