Private restaurants in Cuban province improve services, create jobs

CAMAGUEY, Cuba, Nov 8 (acn) At about 74 non-state restaurants operate in the province of Camagüey increasing the gastronomic offer and providing employment to some 500 self-employed workers, according to the number of people working, as an average, in these facilities.
Jesús Polo Vázquez, Vice President of Economy of the Provincial Administration Council, told ACN that 12 out of those places, popularly known in Cuba as "paladares", have ties with the Ministry of Tourism for the provision of services through travel agencies.
With the interest of maintaining organization and legality in the exercise of this form of management, not only in the gastronomic field, but in all the approved areas, activities of attention to the sector are being carried out in the territory by different governmental working groups.
The official said that in the case of restaurants, following the closure of three of such businesses in this city, currently under investigation for detected irregularities, there were rumors about the intention to paralyze the development of this activity, which is false.
As long as the law is complied with in the scope of the license and the existing regulations, none of these facilities will be unjustifiably closed, the vice president noted, and announced that in coming days there will be meetings with the owners to make them known the actions of the aforementioned working groups.
In the exercise of non-state gastronomy, indisciplines in the payment of taxes, including sub-declaration, marketing of unauthorized or unjustified products, use of facilities as cabarets, and excess of capacity over that approved in the License, are among the detected violations, Polo stated.
He acknowledged that, although the wholesale market for this sector still does not exist, those entities can hire and sell their products at retail prices directly to self-employed workers, as well as previously meeting with their state's mandate.
Paladares like El Mesón del Principe, El Paso, Crono and El Patio, among others, maintain a high quality in their management, and constitute a fundamental link in the attention to the city tourism, with a great growth in the last years that has positioned Camaguey as the third most demanded city in the country for short stays.