Cuba's Chamber of Commerce for a closer link with the country's entrepreneurship

HAVANA, Cuba, Feb 16 (ACN) Ricardo Cabrisas Ruiz, deputy prime minister, called on the Cuban Chamber of Commerce (CCC) to work more closely and cohesively with all the actors of the business system, including MSMEs, in order to promote exports with added value and rational import substitutions, for the benefit of the country.

Cabrisas, also head of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (Mincex by its Spanish acronym), chaired at the Havana Convention Center the General Assembly of that institution, corresponding to 2023, in which his members from both the state and non-state sector presented experiences, difficulties, good practices and ideas to enrich the projections for the current year.

He highlighted the role that as part of the main tasks or challenges of the CCC, including the training of its members, can play the so-called clusters, a form of business organization by sectors or related activities, to seek common solutions based on science, technology and innovation, and based on the priorities of the nation and the orientation to target markets.

Presenting the report on the work carried out last year, in which the Chamber of Commerce celebrated its six decades in the midst of a war economy, Antonio Luis Carricarte Corona, its president, said that the institution participates in the process of updating the Cuban economic model, promotes exports of goods and services, import substitution and business opportunities with foreign capital.

He pointed out that currently the membership amounts to 1,226 companies, 303 of which are MSMEs, maintaining as one of the main objectives of the year, the attraction of new economic actors, given that the dynamics with the complement of the economy is still insufficient, which provides robustness to the business sector as a living system.

He also announced that in 2024 the CCC will focus its efforts towards the strengthening of relations with sectoral, branch and business associations that contribute to organize direct or reverse missions, exhibitions, forums, events, specialized fairs with projects, and intend to achieve results.

According to Carricarte, the difficult conditions that have characterized the socio-economic context of our country have not prevented the growing interest of foreign businessmen to participate in development programs and investment projects in Cuba.

During 2023, 24 business forums were held, seven of them direct and 17 inverse, where projects of the prioritized sectors of the Cuban economy, main exportable products and investment projects were presented.