by: James Bone
From: The Times
April 06, 2012 11:58AM
Cuba
A BRITISH businessman has set up the first curry house in the Cuban
capital as the cash-strapped communist country experiments with private
enterprise.
Cedric Fernando, the son of Sri Lankan immigrants, used to own an estate
agent's on Church Street in Kensington, West London.
Three months ago he opened Bollywood, Cuba's first curry restaurant, in
the smart Nuevo Vedado section of Havana.
Mr Fernando, 49, who has put the business in the name of his Cuban wife
Oyaky, is part of a growing entrepreneurial class in Cuba as the
government permits certain categories of people to work por cuenta
propia - for their own account.
With a vintage MG sports car parked outside his restaurant, which is in
his wife's home, Mr Fernando looks every inch the successful small
businessman. But he is careful to avoid the word "capitalist" because of
its derogatory implication in Cuba.
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"I am neither communist nor socialist nor capitalist. I'm a normalist,"
he said. "When you say capitalist, they think you are going to come and
rob them."
Bereft of its Soviet benefactor and reliant on the generosity of the
ailing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Cuba can no longer afford to
maintain the State's monopoly over the economy.
Under Raul Castro, who took over from older brother Fidel in 2008, the
Cuban Government intends that up to 40per cent of the island's workforce
of 5.2 million will be in non-state jobs by 2015.
The Government wants to cut 170,000 state jobs this year and create
240,000 new non-state jobs. More than 362,000 people already work for
themselves.
In October 2010, the Government published a list of 178 jobs that could
be performed privately. It makes sometimes comic reading: alongside
plumbers, barbers and carpenters are folk dancers, artificial-flower
sellers and even "dandies".
Cubans are allowed to open shops and even to sell their homes and cars.
State-owned farmland is being leased to 150,000 peasants to cultivate
and the State is to start providing loans for small businesses. It is
also possible to buy advertising in the state-owned telephone directory.
For people who earn an average of $US19 ($18) a month, being allowed to
become a "cuenta propistas" - self-employed - is a turning point.
It gives them an incentive to work and to be rewarded directly for their
endeavour.
However, Cuba's economic czar, Marino Murillo, a rising power in the
government, insists that economic reform will not shake the one-party
system.
"In Cuba there will be no political reforms. What we are talking about
is an updating of our Cuban economic model, which makes our own form of
socialism more sustainable for the wellbeing of our people," he told
foreign journalists this week.
Stroll along Calle Neptuno in Old Havana and you can see the budding
private economy on display. The street is lined with nascent businesses
ranging from those selling plumbing supplies and women's makeup to those
giving tango lessons.
Jaisel Lopez sells counterfeit DVDs and music CDs in a shop along with
21 other merchants who pay just over $US1 a day in rent for their space.
She has Hollywood action films on sale for $US1, which she copies onto
empty DVDs.
"We have films from all countries except Cuba," she said, "because Cuban
films you cannot sell."
On a good day, she can sell 40 copied DVDs and music CDs.
Yanislevy Sierra deals in second-hand clothes. "When you buy clothes
from someone else, you pay half price," she said. "If your shirt costs
20 pesos (just under $US1), we pay 10 pesos."
In the 1990s private restaurants and renting rooms to tourists became
two of the first categories of small business allowed to operate. But
the government put many restaurants out of business by limiting them
with a "ten-seat" rule.
Mr Fernando's Bollywood restaurant has been open for three months and is
flourishing to the point where he is considering extending the seating.
To promote it, he recently sent a text to his customers - many of whom
are diplomats - saying: "You Know Who will be eating at Bollywood
tomorrow at 8pm."
The diplomats, hoping to catch a sight of the ageing Fidel Castro,
turned up in droves, he said.
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