2. El Caribe 2015– Serie: Economía de América Latina

3. Cuba

4. Cuba at a glance: OVERVIEW A change of leadership within the forecast period is highly likely. Although the Economist Intelligence Unit expects the transfer of power to be relatively smooth, there is no obvious candidate for the presidency among the younger generation of politicians. Systemic changes to the tightly controlled political system are unlikely. The economic reform process will remain uneven and some vital measures (such as improving credit provision) will lag, but we nevertheless expect an expanded scope for private enterprise and foreign investment. We have revised down our 2013 growth forecast to 3%. However, growth is expected to pick up to around 4-5% annually in 2015-16. Following moves to increase usage of the "unofficial" (but legal) exchange rate in late 2010, the process of closing the gap with the official rate is forecast to begin in 2015, as part of a strategy to unify the two currencies. After registering a small estimated surplus (of 0.5% of GDP) in 2011, we expect the current account to remain in surplus in 2015-16, as the authorities focus on building reserves in order to prepare for eventual exchange-rate unification. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit

5. Cuba's business environment score will improve marginally, in line with a gradual liberalization of the island's state-dominated economy. However, Cuba will continue to lag at the bottom of the index rankings (78th out of 82 countries ranked), as room for domestic private business and foreign business involvement will remain heavily constrained. We anticipate that an adjustment of the unofficial exchange rate to bring it into closer alignment with the official rate will begin to reduce economic distortions, but imbalances resulting from the fixing of many prices below their market level and the persistence of the dual exchange-rate system will remain, continuing to deter investment. Source: Economist Intelligence Unit