Cuba Has Much to Lose as Ally Chavez Fights Cancer Cubans who were tuned in to the nightly soap opera on a recent Saturday received a sudden burst of bad news, from the other side of the Caribbean. State TV cut to the presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez revealed that his cancer had returned. Facing his fourth related surgery in 18 months, he grimly named Vice President Nicolas Maduro as his possible successor. The news shocked not only Venezuelans but millions of Cubans who have come to depend on Chavez's largesse for everything from subsidized oil to cheap loans. Venezuela supplies about half of Cuba's energy needs, meaning the island's economy would be in for a huge shock and likely recession if a post-Chavez president forced the island to pay full price for oil. Despite the drama, the news likely wasn't a surprise to Cuba's Communist government, and not only because Chavez has been receiving medical care on the island. Havana learned important lessons about overdependence when the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union threw the country into a deep crisis. Trying to avoid the consequences of a similar cut, the Cuban government has been diversifying its portfolio of economic partners in recent years, looking to Asia, Europe and other Latin American nations, and is only about half as dependent on Caracas as it was on the former Soviet Union. FILE - In this Feb. 22, 2012 file photo, a mural featuring Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, left, and Cuba's Fidel Castro, adorns a wall in Caracas, Venezuela. Under Chavez's leadership, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid, supplying about half of the island's energy needs at greatly subsidized rates. The Venezuelan president regularly calls Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed much of the Communist legend's governance and foreign relations playbook. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos, File) Close Cuba is also working to stimulate its economy back home by allowing more private-sector activity, giving a leg up to independent and cooperative farming, and decentralizing its sugar industry. A stronger Cuban economy would in theory have more hard currency to pay for energy and other imports. Also getting off the ground is an experiment with independent nonfarm collectives that should be more efficient than state-run companies. And next year, another pilot program is planned for decentralized state enterprises that will enjoy near-autonomy and be allowed to control most of their income. "This could have good results," said a Cuban economist who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the foreign media. Cuba "is also thinking of boosting foreign investment in areas of the national economy, including in restricted areas like the sugar industry." One of the country's top goals has been to make the island's struggling economy less dependent on a single benefactor. Under the leadership of Chavez, who regularly calls former Cuban President Fidel Castro his ideological father and has followed parts of the Communist leader's governance playbook, Venezuela has sent billions of dollars a year to Cuba through trade and petro-aid. Bilateral trade stood at a little over $8 billion last year, much of it in Cuban imports of oil and derivatives. In return, Havana primarily provides Venezuela with technical support from Cuban teachers, scientists and other professionals, plus brigades of health care workers. Analysts say those services are overvalued by outside standards, apparently costing as much as $200,000 per year per doctor. Experts peg the total Venezuelan subsidy to Cuba at around $2 billion to $4 billion a year. While business with Venezuela makes up 40 percent of all Cuban trade, it's still a far cry from the days when the Communist Eastern Bloc accounted for an estimated 80 percent.