Costly consumer goods flood into Cuba as restrictions are lifted

CUBANS snapped up DVD players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time on Tuesday as Raul Castro’s new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused state land.

Combined with other reforms announced in recent days, the measures suggest real changes are being driven by the new president, who vowed when he took over from his brother, Fidel, to remove some of the more irksome limitations on the daily lives of Cubans.

Analysts wondered how far the communist government is willing to go.