Vol. 80/No. 28 August 1, 2016
Raúl Castro: ‘Cuba is in good shape to
confront challenges’
In the first half of this year, Cuba’s gross domestic product grew by 1 percent, half of what was planned, said Castro, in part because of lower income from exports of nickel, sugar and refined oil, as commodity prices worldwide plummeted.
There’s also been a limited “reduction in the supply of fuel contracted with Venezuela,” Castro said, “despite the resolute intention of President Nicolás Maduro and his government to fulfill this commitment.”
Castro made clear that Cuba’s solidarity with Venezuela “will not be weakened in the slightest.” Some 46,000 volunteer Cuban health workers, teachers and others are working in Venezuela, where working people face attempts by pro-imperialist parties to take advantage of a deep capitalist economic crisis. “Cubans will never forget the support we received from the Venezuelan people when we were confronting great difficulties,” he said.
The U.S. embargo “remains in full force,” Castro said. More than three months ago President Barack Obama announced that “the prohibition on Cuba’s use of the dollar in international transactions would be eliminated,” Castro said, but this has not been done.
As expected, “predictions of an imminent collapse of our economy and a return to the most acute phase of the special period we faced at the beginning of the 1990s have begun to appear,” Castro said, referring to the difficulties Cuba faced when the country lost 85 percent of its foreign trade virtually overnight with the collapse of the Soviet Union. “We were able to overcome this thanks to the capacity of resistance of the Cuban people and their unlimited confidence in Fidel and the party.” While there will be difficulties “we are prepared and in better shape” to face them than in the ’90s.
“There is no room for improvisation or defeatism,” the Cuban president said. “To victoriously overcome a moment like this requires acting with a great deal of energy, equanimity and political intelligence and sensitivity, and continuing to improve the coordination between the [Communist] party and the government, and above all, with a lot of optimism and confidence in the present and future of the revolution.”
It’s necessary to reduce expenses on everything “that is not indispensable,” Castro said. This includes cutting electricity usage by 6 percent and fuel by 28 percent in the state sector. There are no reductions planned in residential areas.
“We’re maintaining the social programs achieved by the revolution for our people and we’re adopting measures with the aim of gradually increasing their quality,” Castro said.
One outstanding example of this are the measures taken to counter Zika and other mosquito-borne viruses by mobilizing thousands of workers and students. There has been only one locally transmitted Zika case, Castro reported, with 22 others detected in individuals entering from another country. Dengue, which was present in 14 provinces, is now present in only one municipality in Guantánamo province.
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