Cuba’s powerful Communist Party yesterday approved an emergency economic package featuring unprecedented free-market measures aimed at opening up the struggling island’s economy as pressure from the US and the European Union heightens.

The document, which has not yet been made public, will be submitted to Cuba’s National Assembly. It envisions expanding opportunities for private enterprise, greater autonomy for municipalities and state-owned companies and measures to attract additional foreign investment, including from Cubans abroad.

In recent days, residents in several Havana neighbourhoods staged protests, banging pots and pans as power outages spread across the island.