Cuba Going Through Gradual Process of Economic Recovery

Cuban Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, said today the country is going through a gradual economic recovery process but warned against creating false expectations.

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In a press conference, he explained that overcoming the 2020 contraction of the gross domestic product (GDP) of minus 10.9 percent takes time, mainly because circumstances like the economic blockade of the United States and the pandemic of Covid-19 keep hurting the economy.

However, he said, economic activity has not stopped. 'We are not passive observers of the Cuban and international situation; we have looked for solutions all the time.'

In this regard, he pointed out that given the lower numbers of hospitalized confirmed COVID-19 cases and the advance of vaccination, the nation undertook the reactivation of economic activities. The process starts with the opening of certain services and international tourism on November 15.

Added to this is the concretion of measures implemented to state companies, the leading economic actor of the country, and in the private sector, with changes in self-employment, like the expansion of their operation possibilities. Also, the approval of 162 micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and six non-agricultural cooperatives has already created more than 2,300 jobs.

Gil explained that several private businesses became MSMEs initially, whose structure pointed to this new form of organization. He described the transformation process as taking place with "a minimum of bureaucracy and maximum of agility, transparency, and trust from the Ministry of Economy towards applicants."

However, he specified, there are already MSMEs and cooperatives that come from new ventures and clarified that there are no limits on the amount to be approved and that the call to present papers is open and does not expire.

The deputy prime minister also referred to the measures adopted to provide further autonomy to state-owned companies. As a positive example of their impact, he cited the fact that more than 60 enterprises began remuneration processes for workers without applying salary scales.

Cuba is going through an exceptional situation with the shortages of cash and the continuance of the US blockade, the Minister of Economy said. He recalled that the 243 coercive measures applied by the Donald Trump administration (2017-2021) are still in place.

Despite this, we are in a stage of diversification of the productive fabric, making it more flexible for economic actors and other actions, which allows us to gradually recover the levels of production and supplies to the population.