Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, during the most recent meeting of the Council of Ministers, which was led by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, emphasized that the main call has to be to produce more with our own effort, with our own talent and with our own capabilities and potential, the Presidency of the Republic reported today.
The Head of State took advantage of this space with the highest leadership of the Government in the nation, to share the analyses carried out with the provincial bureaus of the Communist Party and the governors in all the territories during this month, where the commitments made in each place to overcome the complex economic situation that Cuba is going through were evaluated.
Although the affectations caused by the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States Government are an undeniable truth, President Díaz-Canel acknowledged that there are many potentialities in different places that are not yet taken advantage of, being essential to promote “popular participation in all processes, therefore this also starts from the fact that we must have a dialogue, a permanent conversation with our population”.
The First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party mentioned the measures of saving, energy efficiency and adjustment in the economic and social activity that were adopted to face the specific situation we had with the fuel deficit.
In this regard, he recalled how in the bakeries alternatives were sought to use the ovens not only with energy consumption of the electro-energy system, and the adjustments made to use more efficiently the means of transportation, both for cargo and for the population, particularly the requirement that the state means be put in function of the people’s transportation.
These and other measures, he asserted, showed a result, since “we managed to pass this stage, I would say with less affectations than those that could have existed for the gravity that was presented to us in the last weeks of September and in the first weeks of October, but we cannot dismantle them”.
Just as those that have proven their functionality must be maintained, the President insisted that “we cannot hesitate to modify what has not yielded results and propose new measures, propose new actions, to continue increasing energy efficiency and savings”.
After expressing his conviction that everything that has not worked out well must be rectified, Díaz-Canel urged those present to “listen to what the people are saying, and constantly pay attention to the opinion of the population”, as well as to “listen to and critically evaluate the proposals made by economists, experts and academics on possible solutions to face the current situation”.
In his words, he also made reference to the way in which the institutions must be demanded to fulfill their state functions in all areas, as well as the priority of working in an organized way from the territory and breaking the criterion that things are solved from above, because “solving the problems of the municipality and the community solves the problems of the province and solves the problems of the country”.
This means, he argued, that “the municipalities have to work according to the implementation of national policies, provincial policies and municipal policies that are approved and agreed upon, but with the support of national institutions, provincial institutions and the institutions and actors that participate at the municipal level”.
Another crucial issue addressed by the president was related to the need to stimulate the production of goods and the supply of services. To achieve this, the first thing to do is to produce food, because “this is the first good that must be made available to the population at better prices”.
We have land, we have people, we may lack fuel, we may lack inputs, but today we have no choice, we have to produce food with agroecological techniques, knowing that efficiency will not be the same, but we have to produce, he argued.
He reiterated the concept that has already been raised on other occasions that the main source of food for the population cannot be “what the country imports centrally to distribute with a certain equity or social justice, which sometimes falls into egalitarianism”.
Hence his insistence on “looking for those levers that can stimulate food production and that then the fundamental source of food for the population is what is produced locally, from local balances, and that everything else that the country imports, which it will continue to import to face the situation, then it will be for more”.
Referring to the business sector, he stressed that it must be able to take advantage of all the potentialities that companies have, and that are not always taken into account. With the qualified force at their disposal, when the fuel deficit or other causes prevent them from carrying out their main purpose, to look for ways to “carry out other productions and services to the population that we are not doing today”, which not only generates income for the workers, but also greater offers to the people.
He also referred to the need to promote the creation of MSMEs in the state sector.There are many companies, he argued, that have small structures that are efficient in their activity and are trapped by the inefficiency of the rest of the company, then neither the inefficient part is developed nor the part that is efficient, which in turn ends up being inefficient, and as an independent structure in a MSME could advance.
“We need businessmen to bet everything for the country, to think as a country, and of course this also implies a demand from the management structures of all the organizations”, he said.
Among the work priorities, he referred to the need to continue addressing situations of vulnerability; to attenuate the “inequalities that we have in the country,” he said.
“Inequalities that are evident in our society, that hurt us, that their existence goes against what the Revolution, from the humanist and social justice point of view, has always tried to defend”.
On that same path, he emphasized, the need to stop the exodus of labor force, especially qualified, from the state sector to the non-state sector; to continue giving priority to Health and Education; to improve the functioning of the social programs that exist in the country; to correct the measures that have been implemented as part of the Ordinance Task and have shown that they should be modified; To strengthen the knowledge economy; to continue advancing in the fight against gender violence; to improve the indicators of the Maternal and Child Care Program, the production of medicines, the care of the elderly and the recreation of young people.
There are many potentialities that we have and that we have to take advantage of by working in a different way, reiterated the President, who also spoke of pulling together, in the same direction, without supplanting functions and doing each one what corresponds to him.
When presenting the report on the performance of the Economy at the end of September, the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil Fernández, commented on the gradual recovery of tourism in the country.
While up to that date 1.8 million visitors had arrived in the country, which represents 75.5% of what was expected, and also means 55% of what arrived in the same period of 2019. Likewise, he referred that exports of tourist services grew by 46%.
Regarding the national production of agricultural foodstuffs, he assured that there was a decrease in the delivery to the national balance of rice, bovine meat, fresh milk and eggs, which has to do with subjective and objective problems.
Regarding the latter, he explained that they have been associated with the deficit of inputs and fuel, while the subjective ones are related to issues of productivity, yield and organization.
We need, he reflected, that “there be a greater self-management in the municipalities, which will serve as a support to the food demands of the population and we have to achieve this in the Economy Plan”.
The Council of Ministers approved in this session a new portfolio of foreign investment opportunities in the country, which, according to the explanation of Ana Teresita González Fraga, First Deputy Minister of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, has 729 projects.
In this update, she said, work has been done to increase the number of projects aimed at supplying the domestic market with staple products and supplies for the national industry; as well as to increase projects in sectors such as food production, industry, mining and transportation and logistics, among others.
As novel aspects, she highlighted that 139 projects were presented by local governments and 38 are new opportunities that will be sponsored by them.
