Cuban president Raúl Castro announced yesterday that he would impose a restructuring of economic ministries in order to make the area “more rational and reduce costs.”

According to the state’s official newspaper Granma, the changes are meant to “gradually reduce the number of bodies, allowing the country to have more integrated structures whose composition ensures an efficient operation, grater rationality and reducing unnecessary expenses.” The news came following a council meeting of the ministers, headed by the president.

The meeting focused on reviving the Ministry of Basic Industry (MINBAS), which had been abolished by Castro in 1967. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara led its predecessor, the Ministry of Industries, from 1962 to 1965.

The president has given word that it will combine the portfolios of the light iron and steel industries with the chemical industries. The leader of the new MINBAS has not yet been announced.

All of the industries in MINBAS are considered vital to the state’s economy, and include oil and gas, the production of nickel (the main export), generation and distribution of electricity, production of salt for human consumption, fertilisers, paints, plastics, tires and other rubber products, mineral water, paper, cellulose, glass and cement.

Granma reported that the aim is to “address the problems identified in each of these” ministries, “while advancing the separation of state and corporate functions.”

President Castro said these changes must go “step by step.”

The Cuban Government has passed a law allowing individuals to purchase and sell private homes in the country for the first time in 50 years, official newspaper Granma announced this morning.

The law, which will come into effect on 10^th November, will only apply to Cuban citizens and permanent residents in the country but is seen as the biggest step forward taken by the Cuban Government to date in a series of free-market reforms.

Since 1959, the absence of a property market has meant that an exchange of properties could only take place through complicated arrangements between private parties, as well as through black-market deals.

In October the purchase and sale of cars was legalised by the Government. Auto sales on the island had been previously limited to cars built before 1959.