Prosperity in Cuba will require significant changes in how it does business

Havana

WHEN Cuba was hit with rolling blackouts a decade ago, Fidel Castro decided to save energy by ordering everyone on the island to switch from incandescent to fluorescent lighting. Millions, perhaps billions, of bulbs were ordered from China, and teams of students were dispatched to enter every home and business and make the switch.

It was, a former high-level government official said, "a typical Fidel thing". The grand gesture as a way of addressing economic crises, from the mass mobilisation to harvest sugar in 1970 to the attempt to replace every light bulb in the country 35 years later, has disappeared under Cuba's current leader, Fidel Castro's brother Raul.

"What most people want now is prosperity that can be sustained," said the former official, who did not want to be identified so that he could speak candidly. "Fidel wouldn't accept anybody telling him he was wrong. Raul is a hard-line party guy. But he wants the opinions of experts." And economists here have been telling their government that prosperity will require significant changes in the wa…