Cuba airs 50-year-old rules on car sales

For the first time since the revolution of 1959, the Cubans have the right to purchase new and used vehicles by the State without government approval, a step toward more economic freedom on the Communist-run island official media Thursday, announced.

In the course of a reform two years ago Cubans can buy and sell used cars from each other, but must be from the Government, a new vehicle or second-hand one, in the rule, retailers buy a relatively modern car, State authorization request.

The Communist Party newspaper Granma, said that Council of Ministers decided new rules on Wednesday that "eliminate existing mechanisms of approval for the purchase of motor vehicles by the State."

As a result, Granma said, "is the retail sale of new and used motorcycles, cars, vans, vans and mini buses for Cubans and foreign citizens, companies and diplomats free."

The Cuban Government maintains a monopoly on the retail sale of cars.

The liberalisation of car sales was one of more than 300 reform, that of President Raul Castro, who took over for his sick brother of Fidel in 2008 and in 2011 at a Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba's only legal political party allowed to continue.

The proposed amendments provide a greater emphasis on private initiative, which had been largely suppressed under Soviet system of Cuba and less government control over the sale and purchase of items such as houses and cars.

Today, there are tens of thousands of private small businesses in Cuba, and thousands of farm, construction, transport and other types of cooperatives, which should benefit from the new rules. Many Cubans who receive money from relatives living abroad should also be helped.

Before September 2011, only the cars, which were in Cuba before the revolution 1959 freely bought and sold could, therefore, there are as many 50s or older vehicles, most of them United States manufactured, rumbling through Cuban streets.

There are also many Soviet-made cars from the time when the Soviet Union of the island of largest ally and benefactor was.

Newer models are largely in State hands and sold used at a relatively low price, people choose such as Cuban diplomats and doctors, who then often serve abroad, sell them on four or five times the price.

Cubans and foreigners need government permission to import a new or used car, a regulation, Granma said was not lifted.

The new regulations will be published in the coming days in the Official Gazette and become law 30 days later. You were expected to include rigid control, currently 100 percent for new cars, with the proceeds to finance the country's decrepit public transport system, Granma said.