The first secretary of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, continued on Thursday the exchanges with the main political and government authorities of the different territories; in this case, to evaluate the realization of the economic and social strategy of Las Tunas by 2023.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Salvador Valdés Mesa, the Vice President of the Republic, Manuel Marrero Cruz, Prime Minister, and Roberto Morales Ojeda, a member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of Organization of the Central Committee, also participated in the meeting.
“There are interesting experiences and issues in the provinces in which progress has been made, but the expected results have not yet been achieved. In the agricultural sector and food production, for example, it is still not possible to satisfy the demand of the population," the Prime Minister said this morning.
“We have been discussing during these days throughout the country what also corresponds to the Party: an evaluation of what we still need to do, how to respond to the needs and expectations that we have set ourselves to make 2023 a better year,” Morales Ojeda said.
Last January, the member of the Central Committee and first secretary of the Party in Las Tunas, Manuel René Pérez Gallego, accompanied by the deputy to the National Assembly of the People's Power and provincial governor, Jaime Ernesto Chiang Vega, as well as directors of companies and institutions and social and political organizations, exposed the program to face the severe economic and social scenario for this year.
At that time, inflation was pointed out as the most pressing difficulty, which contrasts with the depression in the supply of goods and services. Likewise, they pointed out the persistence of dissatisfaction among citizens regarding the quality of basic services such as the supply of drinking water and public passenger transport. Housing construction, they said at that time, does not respond to real needs; while the yields of the cultivation areas were below potential.
Faced with this panorama, the projections exposed in financial matters were proposed to slow down the rise in prices and reduce the budget deficit; also increase net sales and profits -before taxes- among state companies.
Besides, the will to strengthen and energize the delivery of land in usufruct was reiterated; and consequently, the production of food and sugar. In addition, increases were expected in the delivery to market of beef and pork; as well as grains, roots, and fresh vegetables. Another key point within the proposed platform for the local economy was to further boost the furniture, metal, and metallurgical industries, which predicted production increases compared to 2022.
All this, in the middle of an extremely adverse scenario due to the permanence of the measures that intensified the US siege of the Cuban economy since 2017, and aggravated by the effects of the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia and the COVID-19 pandemic on global markets and supply chains.
