Cuba revising travel policies: Raul Castro

Cuba revising travel policies: Raul Castro
Reuters
By Marc Frank | Reuters – 9 hrs ago

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba will revise its travel and immigration rules as
part of a broader reform of its economic and social policies, Cuban
President Raul Castro said on Monday.

He spoke after the Cuban Parliament approved Communist Party proposals
to overhaul the country's stagnating, state-dominated economy and lift
some restrictions on citizens' personal lives.

"The country is modifying decisions that played a role at a certain
moment and unnecessarily were never changed," the Prensa Latina news
agency quoted Castro as stating.

"Today the overwhelming majority of Cuban immigrants leave for economic
reasons and almost all of them maintain their love for family and the
country where they were born," Castro said.

He said rules still in place dated back to the earlier years of the
revolution when immigration was largely political and manipulated by the
United States.

It was not immediately clear what the changes in travel and immigration
policy would entail. But Cuban regulations, which make it difficult and
expensive to travel or move abroad, have long been criticized by local
residents and human rights groups.

The economic reform plan approved by the National Assembly includes more
than 300 points. It was first approved at a Communist Party Congress in
April and would definitively do away with the decades-old paternalistic
society built under Fidel Castro's leadership.

Foreign journalists were not invited to the parliamentary meeting
addressed by Castro. But he was paraphrased by state-run media as urging
lawmakers and all citizens to adjust to the new times and model he is
pushing by shedding bureaucratic habits.

"President Raul Castro said today that a change in mentality is
indispensable to put into practice the changes the country needs,"
Prensa Latina said.

ECONOMY SEEN IMPROVING

The measures, some already being implemented, were improving economic
performance, Castro said, with growth at 1.9 percent in the first half
of 2011 and on track toward 2.9 percent for the year, compared with 2.1
percent in 2010.

The reforms, to be implemented over five years, slash more than a
million government jobs and reduce the state's role in sectors such as
agriculture, retail services, transportation and construction in favor
of private small businesses, cooperatives and leasing.

Larger state companies are freed up to make more of their own decisions
and take into account market forces, while regulations that prohibit
normal personal affairs such as buying and selling cars and homes would
be loosened.

At the same time state subsidies for everything from food to utilities
will be gradually eliminated and state wages, which average the
equivalent of $18 per month, increased.

The state has monopolized more than 90 percent of all economic activity
and employed a similar percentage of the labor force since the earliest
days of Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution.

The country, which faces a stiff U.S. trade embargo, has yet to fully
emerge from a two-decades-old economic crisis sparked by the demise of
former benefactor the Soviet Union.

Castro has pushed for a new economic and social model based on
individual effort and reward with targeted welfare, to replace one based
on collective labor and consumption.

Raul Castro first replaced his ailing brother Fidel five years ago and
then became president in 2008.

The single chamber parliament meets two times a year for only a few days
and just about all of its members hold positions in, or are members of,
the Communist Party, the only legal political organization in the country.

(Editing by Tom Brown and Eric Beech)

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