Castro Takes the Economy in Hand.

The article presents information on the conditions prevailing in Cuba. The modest private sector that had flourished since the 1970s had become intolerable. Some Cubans were pursuing their individual enrichment and the private economy was draining the state sector of increasingly scarce resources. Meanwhile, Cuba's open economy remained as vulnerable as ever. Its annual export earnings had in the recent past provided sufficient hard currency for imports of between $1.2 billion and $1.5 billion, but in 1986 those had been reduced to some $600 million.