The Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) of Cuba reported this Monday that the call for the creation of micro, small and medium enterprises is open (MSMEs) and non-agricultural cooperatives in activities that until now had not been processed, according to official media on the Island.
Through its official channel on the Telegram platform (Channel of Economic Actors), the agency explains that applications from MSMEs or non-agricultural cooperatives of any legal and authorized economic activity will be received and processed according to Decree 49/2021.
This announcement implies that the applications of MSMEs or CNAs of any legal and authorized economic activity according to Decree 49/2021 will be received and processed by the Ministry of Economy and Planning.
— Ministry of Economy and Planning of Cuba (@MEP_CUBA) August 8, 2022
According to a office of the Cuban News Agency (ACN), the applications that are already filed on the aforementioned platform will be activated immediately and will begin processing, starting with the oldest. The deadline for the reconversion of self-employment businesses to MSMEs or non-agricultural cooperatives will be the coming September 20.
According to the data released by the MEP, 4,471 applications for the creation of new economic actors have received the green light to operate, since this process began in September 2021.
The governing body of cuban economy points out that of the total number of approved enterprises, 4,364 are private and 51 state-owned, to which 56 cooperatives have been added so far. 53% of these new actors correspond to reconversions of pre-existing businesses and 47% to new ventures, the communication specifies.
According to the most recent statistics, forecasts indicated that MSMEs and approved non-agricultural cooperatives could generate some 76,167 new jobs.
MSMEs, whether private or state-owned, are part of the current economic scenario on the Island, and coexist with non-agricultural cooperatives, self-employment and socialist state enterpriseconsidered by the government as the main actor in the Cuban economy.
The legislation allows them to have one or more partners, to be constituted as commercial companies and to be classified depending on the number of employed persons as: micro-enterprise, whose range of employed persons is from one to 10 persons; small business, from 11 to 35; and medium-sized company, from 36 to 100 people.
These new enterprises have been given their own legal personality, can export and import through state entities, and have been authorized for activities related to accommodation, beauty services, food production, manufacturing, information technology, logistics and transportation, among others.
However, they cannot access spheres considered strategic for the State, such as health, telecommunications, defense and the press.
