Cuban minister of finance and prices outlines measures to control prices

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 22 (ACN) We must move towards price rationality through control at the institutional level and efficiency in production, Meisi Bolaños Weiss, minister of finance and prices, said when referring to the incidence of the fiscal deficit in the inflation affecting the country.

During her participation at the radio program Mesa Redonda, Bolaños Weiss pointed out that prices give the value to the products, along with the expenses that are invested in them.

In this sense, she urged to face the excessive growth of prices by means of control and supervision at all levels and in each territory.

Among the measures outlined by Bolaños Weiss, in order to generate productivity and reduce the fiscal deficit, she emphasized the need to turn to the methods of price formation, and the deepening that our companies must make in the utility of the goods and services they generate.

The head of finances and prices stated that in order for the Cuban peso to recover its value, the productive level must be raised and, consequently, the supply in the markets must be increased to substitute imports.

The socialist state enterprise as the main actor of the Cuban economy and the rest of the forms of business management must assess the efficiency of its productive activity, and consider the high expenditure on wages that must be compensated with such efficiency, she added.

Despite inflation, which Cuba, like many other countries, faces, the State will continue protecting its population in terms of prices, by subsidizing the most sensitive and essential goods and services, among them, food and medicines, Bolaños continued.

For example, she mentioned the products of the regulated family basket, whose retail prices remain basically unchanged, as well as the payment of electricity, water, gas and public transportation, for which, even in the midst of limitations and difficulties, the country acquires fuel at very high costs.

Bolaños highlighted how, in the midst of many obvious difficulties, the country continues developing investments in the hydraulic sector, with the water transfers, and in the energy sector, with the maintenance of thermoelectric plants.

As it happens with the products of the regulated family basket, medicines for the treatment of chronic or permanent diseases, raw materials for health, are also subsidized despite the increase in costs, the minister concluded.