More than 81,000 Cubans applied for licenses to open small businesses or rent their homes since the government decided in October to expand these activities as part of a plan to eliminate 500,000 government jobs, the official daily Granma said on Saturday.

A total of 81,498 Cubans had applied for permits to develope "self employed" (private) work till Nov. 19, less than a month after the announcement of new measures for the expansion and flexibility of that activity, Granma said.

Granma stressed that already 29,038 permits have been delivered and more than 16,000 requests are under study. 20 percent of the accepted "self employed" licenses shall be used to produce or sell food, an activity with great demand on the island.

Another six percent of the permits are for transport activities or passengers transfer (private taxi drivers) and one percent is associated with new ways of house renting.

Raul Castro's government in October allowed the opening of small businesses to help absorb the half a million people, 10 percent of the workforce, who will lose their jobs from the state bloated sectors.

The private work may be exercised in 178 activities, 83 of them are allowed to recruit employees for the first time in 50 years of revolution, a way for the creation of small private companies in the island.

The small private business were eliminated in Cuba on March 13, 1968, as part of the then so-called "Revolutionary Offensive."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy fell to its lowest point and the licences for private work were reopened, but with the economic recovery the permits were frozen till Raul Castro' s new reforms.

The economic adjustment plan designed in Cuba is expected to be ratified by the ruling Communist Party at its Sixth Congress, scheduled for the second half of next April.

Source: Xinhua