The Cuban government has approved a law allowing individuals to buy and sell homes for the first time in 50 years, the official newspaper Granma said Thursday. The measure is part of a series of economic reforms aimed at reviving the economy of the communist-ruled island and easing a severe housing shortage.
Granma said the reform applies to Cuban citizens and permanent residents and allows sales, donations and exchanges between private parties, in one of the key reforms pressed by President Raul Castro. Castro has begun the process of reorganising a system in which 85 percent of the country's five million workers are employed by the state.
The expansion of the private sector was the main plank in reform plans endorsed at the Sixth Congress of the Communist Party, in an effort to reform a Soviet-style economic model and revive a stagnant economy while stopping short of creating a market-led economy. Nearly 80 percent of Cubans own their residences but until now the only transactions available were under a complex system of informal exchanges. At the same time, the country is believed to have a deficit of around a million homes, with the situation made worse by hurricane damage in recent years.
In an effort to discourage speculation, the new law allows Cubans to own just one main residence and one secondary home. The new law had been widely expected under the reforms adopted by the party, and comes after a measure allowing the private sale of automobiles in early October.
A separate law allowing Cubans greater freedom to travel abroad is expected to be enacted before the end of the year. Under the new reforms, the number of private business operators has hit more than 333,000, above the expectations of the authorities, from 148,000 in 2010. Last year, President Raul Castro's government vastly expanded the number of sectors where private enterprises can operate, with 181 professions now open.
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