The Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel stated on Monday that Cuba must immediately reform its economic and social model.
“We must immediately focus on implementing the urgent transformations, the most necessary ones, that need to be made to the economic and social model,” said Díaz-Canel this Monday during the monthly meeting of the Council of Ministers.
The transformations "are fundamentally related to business autonomy; municipal autonomy; the resizing of the state apparatus, the government, and institutions; and the national production of food," he explained.
In addition, they include "the municipal balances; the change in the energy matrix, which involves not only renewable sources but also everything related to national crude oil; exports, linking them to the flexibilities approved for foreign direct investment."
Finally, the ruler spoke about "taking advantage of economic partnerships between the state and private sectors, especially at the municipal level; and promoting businesses with Cubans residing abroad."
The objective, according to Díaz-Canel, is the macroeconomic stabilization of the country, as well as "increasing foreign exchange income and developing national production, with an emphasis on food."
Amid the deep crisis that the island is facing, Díaz-Canel insisted on municipal autonomy as a solution to the problems: “Municipalities need to be prepared, as increasingly these processes we are launching will take place there,” he said.
"Municipalities must manage foreign direct investment; municipalities must manage their own closed currency schemes; municipalities must manage economic partnerships between the state and non-state sectors; municipalities must design and propose their local production systems; and they must manage investments with Cubans residing abroad," he added.
During the meeting, Economy Minister Alonso Vázquez stated that by the end of January, prices had increased by 0.67%, finishing with a year-on-year inflation rate of 12.5%.
In recent weeks, amid one of the most complex periods Cuba has faced in decades, Díaz-Canel has begun to speak in a reformist tone about “changing everything that needs to be changed” in the functioning of the country's institutions.
At the end of February, the leader, acknowledging the economic difficulties facing the Island, promised to fight, resist, and transform, insisting that the country will "overcome." "We will struggle, we will fight, we will resist, we will transform, and above all adversities and imperial threats, we will rise and prevail," said the president.
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