ABSTRACT
The Cuban transition is a peculiar one involving great disadvantages and obstacles as well as very favorable elements in the initial stages of transition. Cuba is a small nation with a lop-sided, open economy still marked by high levels of sectoral concentration. However, it has great potential for socioeconomic progress, made possible by a vivacious and well-educated people who are independent, intelligent, and alert. The strategy and policy package would stimulate the process of structural evolution toward an entrepreneurial and individually-oriented market type of economy. The economic future and welfare of Cuba and the Cuban people make special development projects not simply important but imperative. Cuba is a society that was essentially westernized long ago and which is located at the junction between the two hemispheres of the Americas. No better way exists of fulfilling the frustrated expectations of the Cuban people in the last half-century and affecting the transition from totalitarianism to political and economic freedom.
