HAVANA (Reuters) - Communist Cuba will not follow China and open up to private businesses even if Cuban leader Fidel Castro is too ill to lead the nation again, Economy Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez said on Tuesday.

"In the hypothetical case that Comandante Fidel remains ill, would there be a change in Cuban policy towards a market opening? I can categorically say that is not foreseen, the Cuban people do not want that," the minister told reporters during a Non-Aligned Movement summit of developing nations.

"The U.S. government thinks differently, with its plan for a transition for the Cuban economy, but they would have to come here first to try that," he said.

Castro, 80, handed over the presidency temporarily to his younger brother Raul Castro on July 31 after emergency intestinal surgery for an undisclosed illness.

Many Cubans are looking for economic reform if not political change under a successor government headed by Raul Castro, who is see as favouring the Chinese path of freeing up private enterprise under Communist Party control.

The U.S. government, Cuba's arch-enemy, has been seeking to undermine the island's one-party state for decades with sanctions. Two years ago, the Bush administration drew up a plan for a post-Castro transition to capitalism.

But Rodriguez said Cuba will continue with predominant state control of the economy and ownership of property. "That is the model we have chosen," he said.

Castro opened up to limited private initiative in the services sector, mainly taxis and family restaurants, in 1993 during the deep crisis Cuba was flung into after the loss of billions of dollars in subsidies when Soviet communism collapsed.

Cuba's economy has recovered in recent years with the help of oil supplies provided by Venezuela on preferential terms and soft loans from China.

Castro began to roll-back the limited economic opening of the 1990s three years ago, cutting licenses for services that private individuals can provide, including clowns and masseurs.

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