The fourth edition of Quorum took place this Friday at the Meliá Havana Hotel. The event organizes it BOOMprivate corporate services with more than ten years of experience.
The meeting, of a day, took a look at the current context of the private sector in Cuba, analyzed possible scenarios in the near future and long term for ventures, and motivated non -state entrepreneurs to create strategies for the year that just begins.
“The celebration of business events is one of the most important lines we have. Gathering our clients, our community, is crucial, not only to learn from them and incorporate their experiences and experiences closer to practice, but also to win new customers and make visible in the market.
“Quorum is a space that we have wanted to solidify as the starting point for the year that begins, a time to discuss and visualize what the year brings, not only for private ones; Foreign companies, commercial offices present in Cuba and state companies have also been added, ”he explained Oniel Díaz CastellanosGeneral Manager of Ago, who offered the meeting of the meeting.
The program included the presentation of tools and spaces for participants to create connections, conferences and expert analysis.
The company made available to participants The thermometer and the Corporate Crimes Report in Cubaguides so that entrepreneurs can carry out a self -assessment of their business and find deficiencies or weaknesses, as well as tools to solve them.
The presentations were in charge of analysts and project leaders, as well as representatives of the European Union, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the French Development Agency (AFD).
“This year’s themes were focused on three points. First, to review everything that could happen in 2025 from the regulatory point of view, in economic policy and also related to the United Cuba-State policy.
“A second theme was focused on control. Since the last months the authorities have increased the control environment on private activity and we have discussed this issue with the prism that you have to learn to live with it, because it is common in any economy; And finally the state-private relationship, which is not a minor issue.
“Everything seems to indicate that during 2025 the authorities want to rethink how the state company has been linked to the private company. We do not necessarily see it as a limitation, but as an opportunity to apply the correct models, the appropriate contractual figures that can allow more concrete businesses to be executed, ”says Oniel.
Other issues were also part of the analysis. One of them was the application of the Resolution 56 of the Ministry of Internal Commerce as of next May, the entry into force of the approval and processing of the MSMEs at the municipal level; as well as political, economic and social measures facing the country and that also have an impact on the private business level, such as the partial dollarization of the Cuban economy, changes in the area of foreign investments and the legislative schedule of the National Assembly of popular power in 2025.
The diversity of the private sector puts voice to the quorum
The general preparation offered by this meeting between actors dedicated to very different activities and of very diverse type in their own management forms: MSMEs, local development projects (PDL), self -employed (TCP) and non -agricultural cooperatives is one of The essential motivations for those who participate.
Juan José Puerto, Dataplus Operations Director, entrepreneurship focused on data networks and security systems, is one of the boom customers since its inception. He believes that this day “marks a vision, guidelines to continue in the private sector, guiding us with tools, with knowledge and allows us jumping. These meetings put us in the right direction. ”
“We are aware of the current events and those issues that yes or yes we have to dominate,” is what Camila Arrieta, designer and creative director of the Cabra Studio of Serigraphic Solutions workshop; While Yudeisy Valdés Martínez, president of the Contval SRL accounting business, believes that the event “collects everything that is happening at this time in Cuba, which is a total crisis. There is a lot of uncertainty in the private sector. ”
The possibility of doing networking or, in Spanish, creating contacts, weaving a network of alliances or even a community, is another of the possibilities that this event provides.
For Cinthia García, partner and administrator of the MSMEme what SRL is to come, one of the 400 wholesale marketers that will be part of the experiment after the application of resolution 56, “exchange in spaces like this with other entrepreneurs, with companies with companies similar and different corporate purpose enriches us. The experiences of one are not those of another; The situation of one can be experiences for others, even if companies coincide in a corporate purpose, they are carried by people with different strategies. The exchange is always vital. ”
“One of the things that I have learned here is that it is very important To carry yours, ”he tells us Maricel Ponvert IserCEO of D ‘Marie Holistic Welfare Center, TCP that currently prepares its transit to Mipyme.
“The space that is promoting boom for us is important, especially to meet more customers. We have customers abroad, but we are also starting in Cuba. The private sector is a space where we need to enter. In addition, we find here many colleagues in the sector that we do not see much because we are in our world. Here we have been able to contact again the best to restore some alliance, ”reaffirms Alian Rigñack, CEO and president of Cuban Engineer SRL, software development company.
A decade later, a still uncertain path
AGE already has ten years of experience in the work of advice to entrepreneurship in Cuba, a process of teaching and learning. Oniel Díaz Castellanos, its general manager, summarizes the approach they have followed.
“When we started we had the thesis that the Cuban did know how to drive a company, carry out a business, what there were not were the right conditions for companies and businesses to flourish.
“All of that began to change precisely as of 2011 with the reform that promoted the Communist Party, what we know as the guidelines. This opening generated more business presence, more diversification of products and services in the market and was visible very fast. In order to advance, you have to understand what a company, communication, marketing, .
“From 2021 to here, with the appearance of thousands of MSMEs and the diversification of the business fabric in Cuba, it is precisely that these conditions are becoming more visible, clearer, and I believe that life has naturally leading to the whole World to understand what to know, what this is going on and how to project to work.
“We make a contribution to that knowledge, but we believe that there is an exceptional starting point that is the inventiveness, the ability to adapt and entrepreneurship that the Cuban has,” he explained.
Projecting and preparing for what is yet to come is an essential objective of the boom work and for which they perform quorum.
“The future is uncertain; Private entrepreneurship arrives to stay. It is already a usual part of the Cuban business system. Frankly, I think it is neither the intention of the authorities, nor is there a way to reverse all that. We are talking about a sector that uses 35 % of the workforce and that contributes to 15 % of the country’s GDP, and that cannot be undone.
“Now, this 2025 is full of new regulations, of new changes in the economy that can tip the balance to one side or the other, and I think that the intelligent, the truly productive, is to try to understand, to anticipate those changes and Always have the ability to adjust and continue advancing, ”he concluded.
