Cuban economy needs ‘urgent changes’ as US blockade deepens crisis, says president

Miguel Díaz-Canel cites China and Vietnam as possible models for opening up the country’s economy

Cuba’s economy needs “urgent changes” to overcome a major crisis intensified by a US oil blockade, president Miguel Díaz-Canel said in a speech to Communist party leaders. “The situation calls for urgent and necessary changes,” Díaz-Canel told the party’s politburo in his frankest admission yet of the need to overhaul the country’s communist model.

In the remarks, broadcast on Thursday, he cited China and Vietnam as possible models for opening Cuba’s economy to the world in order to “create economic wealth and distribute it equally.”