The United States authorized on Thursday eight U.S. commercial airlines to fly to Havana, said Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx.

Cuban lawmakers will discuss this Friday during the 7th Ordinary Period of Sessions of the Eight Legislature the main results of the economy in the first six months of 2016, as well as estimates for the remaining of the year.

The Cuban Parliament modified the 2016 Budget Law to delay till October the payment by workers at state-run companies of an income tax derived from bonuses received apart from their basic salaries and stemming from high production results and the distribution of company gains.

Cuban lawmakers insisted in deepening economic control as a crucial factor in the process towards a prosperous and sustainable socialist system.

Cuba saved in 2015 over 1.9 billion dollars in imports of drugs, equipment, aids, prostheses, ear molds and other components of health, reported Carlos Gutierrez, director of the higher business management organization BioCubaFarma.

At the end of the first half of this year Cuba reached the figure of two million 147,600 visitors, representing an increase of 11.7 percent compared to the same period of 2015, informed Tourism Minister Manuel Marrero.

Finance and Planning Minister Marino Murillo told Cuban lawmakers that the economy is suffering a major setback due to a complex scenario is facing at the moment

Cuban deputies addressed the need to control the concentration of wealth in the non-state sector because such sector leads to the accumulation of property.

The country is currently facing a tense liquidity or cash situation, something which is not new, but which leads to taking a package of measures, said Economy minister Marino Murillo, who noted that vital services for the people will be preserved, as well as appropriate domestic monetary balance.

The General Comptroller of the Republic, Gladys Bejerano, said in this capital that no sustainable development in Cuba will be possible without control, during a speech to the Committee on Constitutional and Legal Affairs of Parliament.

Ricardo Cabrisas, Vice-president of the Council of Ministers, received Ms. Elsa Maria Kristine Erlandsson Juarez, chargé d'affaires a.i. of the Embassy of the Kingdom of Sweden in Cuba.

U.S. companies participating in the First Conference on International Money Transfers in Cuba, IMTC 2016, expressed their intention to establish links to manage remittances to the Caribbean Island.

A U.S. company took on, for the first time in over half a century, the management of a hotel in Havana, even though Washington continues to block investment and trade with Cuba.

The 12 th Latin American Congress on Bee production scheduled from July 18th to the 22nd at Havana's Convention Center with the participation of delegates from 20 countries will discuss the advances of sector in Cuba and region.