Weekly Report - 06 October 2011 (WR-11-40)

President Raúl Castro has called time on the ministry of sugar. In its place he has created a state holding company which faces the challenge of jumpstarting the former motor of the Cuban economy. This is really an exercise in cost-saving and efficiency, which Castro is endeavouring to carry out wholesale across the Cuban economy. Still, the announcement in the Communist party mouthpiece Granma that the once pre-eminent sugar ministry no longer carried out “any functions of state” was a savage epitaph.