(KPL/Prensa Latina) The Cuban government today approved 62 new economic actors, as micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), in order to boost production of goods and services in the country.

Through its website, the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) specified that 59 are private MSMEs and three are state-owned.

With a rapid growth since their approval in 2021, these forms of economic management currently operate in various branches, including food production, recycling and recovery of raw materials, import and export and sale of various assortments, computer programming activities, gardening and manufacturing of construction materials.

The first 35 MSMEs were authorized in September 2021; two years later (at the close of September 2023), the MEP notified almost 9,000 ventures of this nature in the 15 provinces and in 167 of the country’s 168 municipalities, and the current figure stands at 11,118.

Analyses on the subject in the National Assembly (Parliament) indicated in 2023 that the private and cooperative sector (to which MSMEs belong) represents around 13 percent of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and approximately eight percent of imports.

The business with the greatest presence of MSMEs on the island are gastronomy, construction, manufacturing industries and industrial food and beverage production.

KPL