HAVANA — Cuba announced Tuesday that it will legalize small- and medium-sized private businesses in a move that could significantly expand private enterprise in one of the world's last communist countries.

Cuban business owners and economic experts said they were hopeful the reform would allow private firms to import wholesale supplies and export products to other countries for the first time, removing a major obstacle to private business growth.

“This is a tremendously important step,” said Alfonso Valentin Larrea Barroso, director-general of Scenius, a consulting firm in Havana. “They're creating, legally speaking, the nonstate sector of the economy.”

While the government offered no immediate further details, the new business categories appear to be the next stage in reforms initiated by President Raul Castro after he took over from his ailing brother, Fidel Castro, in 2008.

The government has regularly cracked down on private businesses that compete with Cuba's chronically inefficient state monopolies. The latest backlash came after President Barack Obama met private business owners during his March visit to Cuba.

The government currently allows private enterprise by self-employed workers in categories ranging from restaurant owner to hairdresser. Many of those workers have become de facto small-business owners employing other Cubans in enterprises providing vital stimulus to Cuba's economy.

The latest change will almost certainly take months to become law. Such reforms typically require formal approval by Cuba's National Assembly, which meets only twice a year.