Cubans greet market reforms with hope, skepticism and exhaustion

A Havana man learned about Cuba’s biggest market reforms late because the power had gone out again. That delay said as much about the country’s mood as any official speech: after years of shortages, blackouts and rising prices, ordinary Cubans are judging the package by whether it changes daily life.

Lawmakers approved the measures on June 18 after the Communist Party’s Central Committee had already signed off, and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz presented the package at an extraordinary session of the National Assembly of People’s Power. The plan, described in reporting as nearly 200 reforms and in one account as 176 measures, would open Cuba’s state-dominated economy in ways that have not been seen in decades. It would allow private banks into the island’s finance sector, permit private real-estate development, allow the sale of state-owned properties to national and foreign legal entities and individuals, including Cubans living abroad, let businesses hire more than 100 workers, and let entrepreneurs own multiple private businesses.

Marrero called the market “an instrument for the efficient allocation of resources,” while President Miguel Díaz-Canel insisted that Cuba was “not renouncing socialism.” The leadership framed the package as a correction to distortions, not a break with the system, even as the scale of the changes made the move look, to some Cubans and analysts, closer to the kind of market opening long associated with China or Vietnam. State media echoed that line, presenting the reforms as a way to preserve socialism rather than replace it.

On the streets of Havana, that official language met a harder test. One resident said the announcement reached him only after a blackout, a small but telling detail in a country where power cuts have become part of the rhythm of the day. Another said the measures could help if they were actually implemented and if they improved living conditions, but warned that the gap between wages and prices would remain punishing.

That skepticism has been sharpened by the broader crisis. Residents in several Havana neighborhoods recently banged pots and pans during outages as blackouts spread across the island. Cuba has struggled for years with shortages of food, fuel and medicine, and conditions worsened sharply in 2026 as fuel supplies tightened and the lights went out for much of the day in some places. Independent economists cited in reporting have warned of a GDP contraction this year ranging from 6.5% to 15%.

For all the talk of historic change, the first real verdict on the package may come in the most ordinary places: at the market counter, at the fuel pump, at a small business hiring desk, and in the next apartment left dark by another outage.