Cuba invites exiles to invest in businesses on the island

HAVANA – Cuba on March 16 extended an invitation to Cuban Americans and other exiles living abroad to invest in and own businesses on the island, saying the “doors are open” to a community that has traditionally agitated for harsh economic sanctions against the Communist government.

Cuba also said it was removing impediments to US businesses and other foreign investors, but noted that US law still prevented trade and investment under the long-running economic embargo aimed at punishing the government in Havana.

“There are no limitations,” Cuban Deputy Prime Minister Oscar Perez-Oliva Fraga, who also heads the Foreign Commerce Ministry, told state TV in an interview.

Cuba needs desperately to revive the island’s collapsed economy, a predicament worsened by a US-imposed oil blockade and sanctions that have led to extended blackouts and shortages of fuel, food and medicine.

The policy shift signals flexibility just days after Cuba acknowledged it had begun talks with the US, and as Trump administration officials have told reporters privately the US would be seeking an economic opening as part of any bilateral agreement.

The issue of allowing emigrants to invest in island businesses is a sensitive one for Cuba, which has long viewed an often hostile segment of the exile community with suspicion. Exiles have long been proponents of the trade embargo.

Cubans residing on the island have been allowed to open and operate private businesses since 2021, but nationals living off the island were excluded.

Associate Professor Paolo Spadoni, an economist with Augusta University and author of the 2014 book titled Cuba’s Socialist Economy Today, called the policy shift “pragmatic” but said Cuba should have initiated it years ago on its own, rather than now under “maximum pressure” from the US.

“This change could be a catalyst for deeper US-Cuba economic ties, creating significant opportunities for US companies, even though major obstacles remain,” Prof Spadoni said. “Even so, it represents an important and potentially consequential first step.”

Mr Perez-Oliva Fraga, who previously revealed some details of the plan in an interview with NBC News, said that “depending on the scope of the business” Cubans living abroad could “participate fully in the various areas of the country’s development”.

He said: “We have reiterated on several occasions that Cuba’s doors are open to investment from the Cuban community residing abroad.

“And when we say that, we’re not just referring to small ventures. We’re also referring to the possibility of investing in larger projects.”

Mr Perez-Oliva Fraga said Cuba was especially interested in investment in agriculture, similar to the way Vietnamese companies have been producing rice in Cuba, albeit under conditions of usufructuary, meaning title to the land would remain in state hands.

More than one million Cubans have migrated from the island since 2021, the largest exodus since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, and a source of potential investment still largely untapped.

US President Donald Trump has cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threatened to slap tariffs on any country that sells oil to Cuba, a blow to already ailing output and investment.

Mr Trump has in recent weeks made a series of statements, saying Cuba was on the verge of collapse or eager to make a deal with the US.

He further escalated his rhetoric on March 16, saying he expected to have the “honour” of “taking Cuba in some form” and that “I can do anything I want” with the neighbouring country. REUTERS