The Cuban Revolution Today: Proposals of Changes, Scenarios, and Alternatives 33
eign consumers to choose, if possible, to import their drinks and food
on their own, through relatives, or to acquire them on the black mar-
ket at lower prices. In addition, there was a devaluation of human cap-
ital and professional services in key sectors such as health care and
education. The migration of teachers, engineers, and other profession-
als to the informal economy, to hard currency activities such as tour-
ism and even to foreign countries was fostered by these policies.
An economy mainly based on earnings from tourism and remit-
tances is very vulnerable (despite the more favorable measures
adopted by the Obama administration),^14 as is apparent from the con-
sequences of 9/11 and hurricanes such as Michel, Ivan, Gustav, and
Ike for tourism and the impact on remittances of the current world
economic crisis. As a result, the Cuban economy has lately been rely-
ing heavily on the sale of professional services to Venezuela and many
other countries, mainly in the health care sector.
Since the beginning of the Battle of Ideas in 2000 and especially
during 2004 and 2005, some measures have been adopted to correct
the contradictions provoked in the social domain. With this aim, the
expansion of privatization was stopped, licenses for self-employment
were suspended (in 1999 there were 360,000 licenses, and in 2010 they
had dropped to 110,000), pensions were increased, and direct aid was
approved for the poorest families.^15
The peak GDP growth in the present decade was reached in 2006,
with a rate of 12.1 percent. Since then, the rate of increase has dimin-
ished, being 7.3 percent in 2007 and 4.3 percent in 2008. In 2009 the
Cuban GDP continued falling, reaching a figure of 1.4 percent. The- On April 13, 2009, restrictions on the frequency and duration of visits by Cuban-
Americans to their relatives in Cuba and the frequency and amount of the remittances
sent to them were eliminated. Likewise, procedures were liberalized with regard to tele-
communications and the sending of gifts. - In the first semester of 2005 there was an increase in pensions and other social secu-
rity benefits. In the social security sector, the pensions of 1,468,000 people, just over 97
percent of the total number of pensioners, increased. These actions benefited 4.4 million
people, 30.9 percent of the population, at an annual cost of 2.78 billion pesos (Castro,
2005). In 2008 pensions in social security and social assistance showed a new increase of
20 percent (Juventud Rebelde, April 27, 2008 ;http://www.juventudrebelde.cu).