Cuba is a beautiful country but still locked in the grips of a dictatorship. The bureaucratic procedures and permits required by the Cuban government and some restrictions on the establishment of companies could represent obstacles for foreign businessmen interested in investing on the island.

Although in Cuba there exists sectors such as telecommunications and construction, which have high growth potential due to a backlog in investment, those who are knowledgeable about the real situation in Cuban say that it will be difficult to take advantage of these opportunities, at least for now. That is the perception of the former ambassador of Costa Rica in Cuba, Rodrigo Carreras, who in an interview with the newspaper Nacion.com, detailed the conditions of the economy of the island and the difficulties that could be faced by entrepreneurs interested in doing business there.  

Regarding the visit by a business delegation from Costa Rica made to the island in December 2015, Carreras said: “…I did not see any of the 50 businessmen who came having any success.”  The former ambassador “…argues that bureaucratic paperwork and permits required by the Cuban government are blocking the process and that only a business partnership with the state can be set up.”

“… ‘In Cuba you can not start up a business of overnight, you have to go through a number of procedures, permits, authorizations, which are established by the legal system. In the Cuban legal system, the only recognised form of private enterprise is what they call “paladares”, in the food industry, and a paladar is defined as something through which a family earns its living working a restaurant ranging from very small size to to larger sized restaurants’.”

He added that   “…‘There is only one way to have a private company, and that is in partnership with the government of Cuba, there must be a majority of shares and those must be owned by the government of Cuba, and the contract can be made for ten years. How is an entrepreneur going to invest $5,000,000 to have a contract that allows it to operate for ten years?, of course it will not, that is why its going very slow. It is a sovereign decision of Cuba, that could be changed in the future’.”

Source: Nacion.com