Cuba will not renounce its goals in spite of hardships

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 3 (ACN) This has to be a year to develop, seek solutions to problems and take concrete steps to raise the quality of life of the population, said Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, at a meeting with the Ministry of Economy and Planning (MEP) to evaluate the work projections of the ministry in 2021

As part of the present cycle of meetings of the national executive with the Central Administration of the State Agencies (OACE) and national entities, participated cadres and workers of the MEP, the National Association of Economists of Cuba (ANEC), the Academy and the Faculty of Economics of the University of Havana.

Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil Fernández pointed out that 2021 will be a turning point for the Cuban economy due to the implementation of the Ordering Task, the strengthening of the socialist state enterprise, and the improvement of self-employment and other forms of non-state management.

The minister presented the priorities of the MEP in 2021, among them, to conduct and evaluate the implementation of the National Plan for Economic and Social Development until 2030 (PENDES), and to continue transforming the process of elaboration of the Annual Plan with a more financial and less "allocative" approach.

The priorities will also be to improve the system of control and management of the economy; to contribute to the diversification of exports, income and financial balance of the country; and to achieve efficient management of the investment process.

Other priorities are to improve territorial planning and promote local development and contribute to municipal autonomy; to advance in the efficiency of the computerization service; and to guarantee organizational development for a successful performance of work in accordance with the transformations of the economy.

He pointed out that in 2021 "we will not give up any objective or goal, no matter how difficult the conditions may be", and that the "participation of all economic actors is fundamental for the economic and social development of the country".

He recalled the words of the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, referring to the fact that "with unity, with coherence, with willingness, without fear, with the people, without waiting for guidance, without delay, with firmness, with a firm pulse, with intelligence, with decency, with lucidity and with attachment to our Constitution and the principles we defend, we can always win and increasingly more convincingly".

Executives and specialists of the Ministry -many of them young people- intervened in a debate that Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz described as very much in tune with the complexity of these times.

He explained that the year 2020 and the beginning of 2021 have been very difficult due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the world economic crisis it has brought with it, and the worsening of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the U.S. government against the Cuban people, which during the Trump administration adopted more than 240 measures of aggression.

From 2020 we have to draw economic experiences, while ratifying the need to update more effectively the political and ideological work.

The enemy's strategy against the Revolution will not cease, and we have to take more effective advantage of the new communication and information technologies in defense of the Cuban Revolution, Marrero Cruz said.

Analyzing the national and international economic outlook, he stressed that it is marked, for us, by the continuity of the contraction in international tourism and exports of other services. It is a situation that will not be solved "from one day to the next", so the country is obliged to develop other branches, he said.

Marrero evaluated in detail for more than an hour the main challenges of the national economic situation and in which the MEP has a leading role, such as the Ordering Task, food production, exports, imports, decentralization and productive chains.
He paid special attention to the role of the municipalities, and the autonomy that corresponds to them, in economic and social development. "We cannot neglect the municipal and provincial directorates of Economy and Planning -he said-, if the people who work there are not well attended and prepared, they will not fulfill the role that corresponds to them".

At the conclusion of the working meeting with managers and workers of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, Marrero Cruz described the steps that have been taken - "very important", he said- for the transformation of the MEP into what it should be: "the general staff of the Cuban economy".