Cuban deputy PM updates implementation of measures to boost economy

As reported today by the Presidency of Cuba, so far the salary measures to stimulate the permanence of workers in the Health and Education sectors have been implemented, as well as the extension, until March 31, 2024, of the tariff exemptions for the importation of food and cleaning products by natural persons, without commercial character.

Likewise, the legal norms implementing the reduction of 50 % of the tariffs for the importation of raw materials and intermediate goods, and the increase of tariffs for the importation of tobacco, cigars, rums and spirits have been published in the Official Gazette.

It was learned at the meeting that in February it is planned to update the norms that will allow the reordering of local development projects; as well as to decentralize to the territorial governments the power to approve wholesale and retail prices of Natural and Traditional Medicine, of local dispensary and industrial elaboration.

Next month, progress will also be made in the presentation of proposals to restructure the exchange market, the intervention of the informal market and the control of the exchange rate in the country, which includes the determination of the exchange rate and the formation of prices.

Likewise, he said, emphasis will be placed on recovering remittance flows, encouraging their collection and studying the feasibility of new channels, platforms and the use of digital scenarios for remittances and bank transactions for collections and payments from abroad.

According to the Minister of Economy and Planning, it is a priority to implement the new mechanism for the allocation and management of cash flow for all economic actors, based on the distortions that exist today, in order to achieve a more harmonious functioning of the economy, and thus be able to advance in the autonomy of the state-owned company.

Gil Fernandez highlighted the scope of these Government Projections for 2024, and remarked that they are not fundamentally about price increases, but that they include the necessary impulse to productive activity, the increase of national production, exports and foreign currency income and macroeconomic stabilization.

It is not a matter of raising prices for the sake of raising them, he said, but of encouraging savings, making a more efficient use of resources, and seeking a fairer and more equitable distribution of the wealth generated.

In his presentation to the Council of Ministers of the "Plan of Actions for the Implementation of the Government's Projections to Correct Distortions and Re-launch the Economy", the Deputy Prime Minister pointed out that a key objective is to advance in the macroeconomic stabilization of the country.

"All the actions that are incorporated in the Government's Projections are linked to the Macroeconomic Stabilization Program. What we are doing in terms of price correction, he exemplified, has to do with macroeconomic stabilization, because it eliminates or reduces subsidies, and increases tax revenues.

When we are taking measures to promote and boost production, when we are transforming the exchange market, this has to do with the macroeconomic stabilization of the country, he stressed.

He explained that many of the projections will have more favorable impacts to the extent that more resources are available.

There are actions aimed at increasing the income needed to face a set of issues that we have to deal with in the economy. Having more fuel, more inputs for national production, necessarily involves foreign currency income, external income that must be encouraged, Gil Fernandez pointed out.

Among the objectives of the Government's projections, he added, is the increase of domestic production, with emphasis on the use of the installed capacities.

The measure to reduce tariffs on raw materials, inputs and intermediate goods, he illustrated, has to do precisely with encouraging the import of raw materials to link up with domestic industry. Today we have idle capacities in industry, and we are importing products that can be produced in Cuba.

The deputy prime minister also spoke of further developing social policy and protection mechanisms for individuals, families and households in vulnerable situations. "This makes explicit the distance between our government program and a neoliberal program".

It is also an essential objective to "reduce crime, corruption, illegalities and social indiscipline, through prevention and confrontation, affecting the causes and conditions that generate them". It is necessary to establish order, put an end to the softness, put a strong hand in what corresponds, and demand that what is established be complied with, he specified.

There are high impact projections, he pointed out, among them the mechanism for the allocation and management of foreign currency, which includes the resizing of the exchange market, which is transversal to the whole economy and we are going to face it this year; the transition from subsidizing products to subsidizing people, which implies a change in the distribution of wealth, fairer and more equitable; as well as the transformation of the institutional, regulatory and organizational environment of the economy.

Developing the economy, stressed the Deputy Prime Minister, "means, no more and no less, offering greater welfare to the people, and what we are doing is going in that direction. The worst risk, he said, would be in not changing and not transforming, "everything we are changing is going in the direction of greater welfare for our people".

Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz defined as "a policy of the country" the Government's projections to correct distortions and re-drive the economy, which were first discussed and approved by the Political Bureau, then by the Central Committee Plenary and finally by the National Assembly with the full support of the National Assembly's deputies.

 It is a process of transformation of the Government's work in the country, insisted Marrero Cruz, of strengthening its different structures, as the maximum responsible for the economic and social problems that have a direct impact on our population.

When we speak of re-boosting the economy, it is a profound call that goes far beyond waiting for fuels and foreign currency to fall from the sky, emphasized the Prime Minister.

The scenario is not going to change, it will be very complex, but we have to transform our economy, and we are encouraged by the examples of people, collectives, organizations that under these same complexities have done different things, have sought alternatives.

The Prime Minister referred to the role played by cadres and how they should be to face a war economy such as the one Cuba is going through: cadres who do not stop, who have the vocation to look for solutions, who do not set boundaries that prevent them from moving forward.

We have to review everything, he pointed out. Everything that is not going well must be reviewed, "but we must review it in order to look for solutions", he added.

 We have said that we are going to go through complex times, Marrero Cruz recalled, that the measures are not going to transform the country's situation from one day to the next, "but they are the way out, of that we are sure, and solutions will be found little by little and the lights will be seen, but that will be when we all unite, and we all join together".