CUBA'S ECONOMIC POLICY FROM 1945 TO 2002 .
Cuba is the largest Caribbean island and the most westerly of the greater Antillrd group. Cuba is one of the few remaining countries committed to the socialist mode of production. The ruling communist Party of Cuba continues to limit market reforms to tourisms, nickel production, and a small number of domestic farmers and retail businesses. .
Tourism is the fastest growing industry, and the largest source of foreign exchange. Sugar, nickel, mining, and tobacco are also important industries, as well as the manufacturing sector. The collapse of the Soviet aid in the early 1990s forced Cuba to implement many economic reforms to stimulate new sources of foreign investment and develop new trading partners.
US opposition to Cuban membership in multilateral institutions, such as the IMF and the World Bank, combined with a US trade embargo, continue to hamper development. Cuba is largely politically stable, but uncertain over Fidel Castro's eventual succession is causing some anxiety.
From the time the United States granted Cuba its independence in 1902 through to the 1950s, Cuba was an important source of sugars, cigars, and unprocessed minerals for the United States. As Cuba's leading trade partner, the United States accounted for 67% of Cuba's exports and 70% of its imports in 1958. The United States was also Cuba's main source of both private and official capital. US tourists were the mainstay of the Cuban tourism, making Cuba's the largest Caribbean tourism market in the 1950s.
In part because of Cuba's close economic integration with the United States before 1959, Cuba's economic and social indicators ranked among the highest in the world. By 1957, Cuba had an advanced health sector providing the lowest infant mortality rate in Latin America (13th lowest in the world), and the third highest number of physicians and dentists per capital, comparable with the Netherlands and higher than in the United Kingdom and Finland.
