The Cuban economy is unique in many regards; its exceptionality mainly lies in its persistence in building socialism within a largely neoliberal globalised world. The disintegration of the socialist bloc, which accounted for more than 80% of the country’s foreign trade, had a severe impact on Cuba. Since the crisis of the 1990s, provoked by internal structural distortions spurred by the collapse of European socialism, the Cuban economy has been constantly struggling. The nadir point of the crisis was reached in 1993 when GDP was nearly 35% lower than in 1989. Subsequent data showed a remarkable recovery in the performance of the main macroeconomic aggregates. However, the statistics of the last five years reveal an exhausted economic model.

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The authors of this piece are all from the National Economy Planning Department of the Economics Faculty, University of Havana. David J. Pajón Espina’s research interests include quantitative modeling for economic policy planning; Oscar Fernández Estrada’s principal research is around the functioning problems of the Cuban economy; Anamary Maqueira Linares’s research interests include causalities and consequences of the economic cycles in mixed economies.

Published by Global Labour Column and edited by CSID at Wits University.