Economics and politics focused attention on Cuba this week

On the internal political level, the CCP’s regional business councils met Thursday in the central provinces of Cienfuegos and Villa Clara, the latter being chaired by the party’s First Secretary Miguel Diaz-Canel.

Meanwhile, since Wednesday, the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the organization has made a comprehensive visit to the western province of Artemisa.

In the three regions, the common factor was the verification of positive experiences in the social, political and economic spheres.

But the challenges and difficulties that were exacerbated by the effects of the US embargo, the COVID-19 epidemic – which Cuba successfully faced – and the internal shortcomings were also addressed, in the face of which the leading role of the communists was insisted to move forward.

On Tuesday, President Miguel Diaz-Canel held a meeting with journalists, influencers and communication experts from eight countries, participating in the Patria International Symposium, which met for two days in the capital.

The President thanked those personalities for their active support of Cuba, who at the meeting discussed the manipulation of the opinions of the dominant media and the need to create effective digital platforms to defend worthy causes in Latin America and the world.

In this regard, Díaz-Canel urged them to unite all efforts “to make a better world possible, real and virtual”, while asking for their contributions and criticism, because “we are not a perfect society”.

On the economic front, it was announced on Tuesday the start of an analysis process with government companies that expected losses in 2022, to adopt measures in each case and reverse the situation.

This was analyzed in a meeting between President Diaz-Canel and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero, with representatives of the business system.

To address this issue, working groups have been created at the national and regional levels, which will investigate the status of the entities and report on concrete results and actions before the end of next May.

The branch minister, Yadale Perez, said on Tuesday that he is also seeking to restore agriculture in what authorities consider the worst year in the past decade, in which some 60 measures have been implemented.

The Minister considered, during the work budget for 2021, that the intensification of the blockade and the Covid-19 epidemic, in the midst of the monetary system, pose greater challenges to the state and affect the sector.

Among the challenges are the acceleration of the delivery of land in the usufruct, where 295 thousand hectares are available, reflecting the situation of 180 companies that ended the year with losses, and an increase in efficiency indicators, among other things.

As an counterpart to these problems, tourism, the locomotive of the Cuban economy, appears to be regaining momentum, boosted by the arrival of 281,286 travelers to the country through February, a 490 percent increase over the same period in 2021, according to a report from the National Office of Statistics and Information.

msm / rc