Cuba stays communist with or without Castro: minister

Cuba stays communist with or without Castro: minister
By Tony Boadle Tue Sep 12, 6:55 PM ET

HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist Cuba will not follow China and open up to
private businesses even if Cuban leader
Fidel Castro is too ill to lead the nation again, Economy Minister Jose
Luis Rodriguez said on Tuesday.

"In the hypothetical case that Comandante Fidel remains ill, would there
be a change in Cuban policy toward a market opening? I can categorically
say that is not foreseen, the Cuban people do not want that," the
minister told reporters during a Non-Aligned Movement summit of
developing nations.

"The U.S. government thinks differently, with its plan for a transition
for the Cuban economy, but they would have to come here first to try
that," he said.

Castro, 80, handed over the presidency temporarily to his younger
brother Raul Castro on July 31 after emergency intestinal surgery for an
undisclosed illness.

Many Cubans are looking for economic reform if not political change
under a successor government headed by Raul Castro, who is see as
favoring the Chinese path of freeing up private enterprise under
Communist Party control.

The U.S. government, Cuba's arch-enemy, has been seeking to undermine
the island's one-party state for decades with sanctions. Two years ago,
the Bush administration drew up a plan for a post-Castro transition to
capitalism.

But Rodriguez said Cuba will continue with predominant state control of
the economy and ownership of property. "That is the model we have
chosen," he said.

Castro opened up to limited private initiative in the services sector,
mainly taxis and family restaurants, in 1993 during the deep crisis Cuba
was flung into after the loss of billions of dollars in subsidies when
Soviet communism collapsed.

But hundreds of small enterprises have been run out of business by high
taxes and government regulations.

Cuba's economy has recovered in recent years with the help of oil
supplies provided by Venezuela on preferential terms and soft loans from
China.

Castro began to roll-back the limited economic opening of the 1990s
three years ago, cutting licenses for services that private individuals
can provide, including clowns and masseurs.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060912/ts_nm/cuba_business_dc_1