
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, August 15, 1993                   TAG: 9308150019
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MEXICO CITY                                LENGTH: Short

GOVERNMENT LETS CUBANS HOLD DOLLARS

Cubans could own and use foreign currencies legally - even open bank accounts with them - for the first time in decades as officials on Saturday enacted reforms to help save the dollar-starved economy.

The new law was published in the only newspaper still publishing on Saturdays - the Communist Party daily Granma - and was reported by the government's Prensa Latina news agency, monitored here.

The measure is one of several that President Fidel Castro outlined last month as part of efforts to rescue the Cuban economy by luring dollars from investors and Cuban exiles.

Cubans contacted by telephone said longer-than-normal lines had formed in front of foreign-currency stores, whose goods are more varied and of higher quality than the stores where Cuban pesos are used.

Granma also published a Central Bank statement saying that it would allow Cubans to open bank accounts in foreign currency. It said they would be able to use foreign currency at some of the special shops set up for the purpose.

A large minority of Cubans have some foreign currency sent from relatives abroad, garnered from tourist tips or earned in black market transactions. Castro said last month that officials hope the new measures will encourage Cuban exiles abroad to ship more currency to Cuba.

Nearly all of the foreign currency used in Cuba seems to be the U.S. dollar. Even government tourist stores set prices in dollars.

by CNB