The country’s new President Raul Castro has begun taking steps to eliminate what he calls “excessive prohibitions” since taking over from his ailing brother, Fidel Castro, last month.

Along with greater access to consumer goods, many Cubans want to be able to freely travel abroad; if not to emigrate to the United States and Europe, to visit family living there.

“These issues are being considered permanently,” Perez Roque told reporters at a meeting with representatives of Cuban emigre organizations.

“We are firmly committed to making relations between Cubans living abroad and their families in Cuba more and more fluid, and making the rules and paperwork more expedient,” he said.

More than 1.3 million Cubans live abroad, mainly in the United States, in what is called the “Cuban diaspora” that began with an exodus after Castro’s 1959 revolution.

Cuba is one of the few countries that requires its citizens to have an exit permit to travel abroad. Thousands leave illegally every year, mostly heading for Florida, home to the largest Cuban community outside Cuba.

Havana blames the illegal migration on what it calls the politically motivated policy of its archenemy, the U.S. government, which grants almost automatic residency to Cubans who manage to get to the United States.

Other Cubans want to travel legally to work in Europe and Latin America for longer periods without losing their right to return to Cuba. Currently Cubans who stay abroad for more than 11 months lose their Cuban residency and are stripped of their homes and belongings, even inheritances.

A record 193,000 Cubans who reside abroad visited Cuba last year, Perez Roque said.

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