Friday, December 9, 2011

Cuba allows private ads in state-run phone book

Cuba allows private ads in state-run phone book
By Jack Kimball

HAVANA, Dec 8 (Reuters) - Cuba will allow private advertisements in the
state-run phone directory for the first time in half a century, state
media reported on Thursday, in the latest move to a more open economy.

President Raul Castro is pushing through a range of reforms in an
attempt to strengthen Cuba's struggling Soviet-style economy by
encouraging more private initiative and reducing the role and size of
the state in some sectors. [ID:nRISKCU]

The move to allow some private ads is unprecedented in a country where
political banners replaced commercial advertising after Fidel Castro's
1959 revolution.

Communist Party newspaper Granma said private service providers such as
cafes, restaurants and barbershops would be able to promote their
businesses in the 2012 yellow pages.

"With the aim of offering people more contact information about private
sector services, the Telecommunications Company of Cuba offers the
inclusion of self-employed workers in the so-called Yellow Pages
Telephone Directory," Granma said.

State-run media reports the number of "people working for themselves,"
often a euphemism for mom-and-pop businesses, has doubled to more than
350,000 since regulations governing private economic activity were
liberalized a year ago.

The growth of the "non-state sector" is being encouraged as the
cash-strapped government seeks to slash a million jobs from its payrolls.

U.S. ideological foe Cuba first relaxed rules on private services in the
early 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union - its principal backer
and economic partner - pushed the island nation into an economic crisis.

Ads in the yellow pages will be sold for around $10 and can include
photos and images taking up to one page in the book, Granma said,
quoting the head of telephone directories. (Additional reporting by
Nelson Acosta; editing by Anthony Boadle)

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/08/cuba-reforms-ads-idUSN1E7B70B820111208

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