Cuba’s private-sector experiment is faltering

It was an admission of sorts. When Manuel Marrero Cruz, Cuba’s prime minister, stood in front of the National Assembly in late December to announce a package of new economic measures, he first blamed the American embargo for the woeful state of the country’s economy. But then he added: “We could have done much more.” That is an understatement.

Cuba’s economy is in its worst state since the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. Even the official figures—which one Western businessman in Havana, the capital, describes as “an exercise in a cover-up”—make grim reading. Annual inflation, according to the government, is at 30%. The fiscal deficit is forecast to be at least 18% of GDP in 2024. In 2023 the economy contracted by around 2%, according to Alejandro Gil, the economy minister.