Nova Scotia Cuba Association

 

New incentives for more imports for the benefit of domestic industry

In the distribution chain, intermediaries are eliminated and this seeks to reduce the prices of raw materials and imported inputs.

Fidel Benito Rendón Matienzo in Exclusive 16/10/2026 CUBAHORA

Among the objectives of the Cuban Government’s Economic and Social Program for 2026 are to increase the import of raw materials and intermediate goods, and to protect the national industry through new incentives.

In this effort to increase input supplies for chaining with local production, a group of new regulations allow to eliminate intermediaries from the distribution chain and contribute to reducing the prices of raw materials and imported finished products, for the benefit of the national market and the population.

Decree-Law 137, Decree 183 (amending the number 32) and resolutions 151 and 152 of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (Mincex), and 62, of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security, establish the new changes.

 

A wide information in recent hours offered to executives and officials of the government of Havana, as well as businessmen, Carlos Luis Jorge Méndez, first deputy minister of Mincex, according to this body on his profile on Facebook.

 

He explained that among the main transformations is the direct hiring of personnel in businesses with foreign investment, branches and representative offices, without the obligation to go to intermediary employer entities.

For its part, the 129 transformation authorizes state-owned companies, cooperatives and forms of private management to carry out foreign trade operations directly, after approval from the Mincex, it was said at the meeting.

 

Likewise, it establishes the easing of foreign investment, which includes the simplification of procedures, the opening of bank accounts abroad and the participation of Cubans residing abroad, among other measures that energize foreign trade.

 

So that in the future the branches of foreign trade representations, established in Cuba, will be able to carry out foreign trade operations and distribute wholesale goods in the country, as established by the rules published on October 2 in the ordinary Official Gazette number 82.

 

As the Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Déborah Rivas Saavedra, recently explained to local media, foreign companies carried out commercial activity, but it was the Cuban importer who nationalized the merchandise, transported it and distributed it.

With the new provisions, these suppliers access the market more directly, up to the wholesale level.

 

The aim of the transformation, Deborah stressed, is to further open the domestic market to the receipt of supplies, with fewer restrictions and intermediaries in the delivery of the products.

 

In his opinion one of the main impacts that this measure can have is the decrease in prices.

 

On the axis 15 of the economic and social transformations, dedicated to foreign trade, he pointed out that the procedure that allows Cuban legal entities to directly request authorization to import and export is already in force, without having to go to other entities such as intermediaries.