Cuba has issued a pair of surprising free-market decrees, allowing foreign investors to lease government land for up to 99 years - potentially touching off a golf-course building boom - and loosening state controls on commerce to let islanders grow and sell their own fruit and vegetables. The moves, published into law in the Official Gazette on Thursday and Friday and effective immediately, are significant steps as President Raul Castro promises to scale back the communist state's control of the economy while attempting to generate new revenue for a government short on cash. “These are part of the opening that the government wants to make given the country's situation,” said Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a state-trained economist who is now an anti-communist dissident. Cuba said it was modifying its property laws “with the aim of amplifying and facilitating” foreign investment in tourism, and that doing so would provide “better security and guarantees to the foreign investor.” It may also help the country embrace golf tourism. Investment firms have for decades proposed building lavish 18-hole courses ringed by luxury housing under long-term government leases. Cuba currently has just two golf courses nationwide, but the Tourism Ministry has said it wants to build at least 10 more. Endorsing 99-year property agreements might be a first step toward making some golf developments a reality, but also makes it easy to imagine a Cuban coastline dotted with timeshares, luxury villas and other hideaways that could serve as second homes. Cuba has allowed leases of state land for up to 50 years with the option to extend them for an additional 25, but foreign investors had long pressed tourism officials to endorse 99-year lease deals to provide additional peace of mind to investors. Cuban officials have tried before to balance their drive for an egalitarian society with an appeal to foreigners seeking to own a piece of paradise. Scrambling for revenue in the late 1990s, the government authorized private foreign ownership of posh apartments in Havana and even signed a $250 million deal for beachfront apartments and timeshares with a Canadian company. Many of those projects stalled, however, failing to draw enough foreign investment. Meanwhile, some overseas businessmen bought Havana apartments but allowed Cubans to live in them - violating rules barring islanders from doing so. The government eventually bought out most of the residences it had hoped would be owned by foreigners. The decree allowing expanded sale of farm products, meanwhile, could have far greater impact on ordinary Cubans. It authorizes them to produce their own agricultural goods - from melons to milk, on a small scale - and sell them from home or using special kiosks on their property. The new law allows Cubans to grow whatever they wish and sell it, but will require them to pay taxes on what they earn.
