For a Different 2024, After Hard Previous Lessons

In a war economy scenario like the one in which Cuba operates today, the decision of its authorities to turn this situation around has been the implementation of measures in dissimilar sectors to boost the economic setback.
   
These determinations come on top of more than 400 others taken during ears 2021, 2022 and the year we are now saying farewell, only that in their implementations they found obstacles such as the lack of foreign currency and other resources, still pending issues since these shortcomings have been deepened. The current package of proposals will be closely monitored in its design and fair application, so that its impact benefits the population.
 
For Cuba there’s no time to rest and we are not precisely talking about a long leisure rest.
 
Cuba has learned sufficiently from previous years so that the imminent 2024 will be different.
 
With huge challenges, such as stopping inflation and improving the daily lives of Cubans, the nation, like the entire planet, faces a global crisis with an impact on the economy, politics, technology, and the environment.
   
It’s impossible to address the present context for the Caribbean territory, without mentioning the main impediment to its multi-sector development: the economic, financial, and commercial blockade of the U.S., a true pandemic that lasts more than six decades and has been reinforced by 13 United States administrations, regardless which Party is in power, whether Democrat or Republican. It's all from the same color.
    
On top of this perpetual suffocating strategy the White House in the interest of choking Cubans, other scourges that take root such as the financial deficit and various fuel shortages and their impact on the electro-energy system; transportation, medicine and food to the point that the regulated family basket stopped being punctual each month and became late and incomplete.
   
There are many reasons and there are enough explanations, as was clearly stated in the agenda of the recent 7th Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
   
In one of his interventions, the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, spoke that situations had to be addressed without contentment, of the inadequacies and poor work of the cadres, officials (…)
 
“What the people expect are results, to have food at their table. And not just that, but much more,” echoing similar previous expressions at said meeting.
   
In previous calendars, improvements in the contributions of agriculture were foreseen to influence the decrease in product prices in markets, but this did not happen.
    
According to the Ministry of Economy and Planning, headed by the deputy prime minister, Alejandro Gil Fernández, in Parliament, which has just held session, good results were recognized in branches such as tobacco and seafood; as well as in tourism, which has been reactivated but not at the expected rate, remaining well below of what was expected.
   
Yes, we already have a respectable hotel and non-hotel infrastructure, several natural resources, we win international awards ascending places of honor, but we need higher flows of clients, strengthening other markets and the ways to bring them. That’s the gist. This turn continues to be crucial, according to the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz.
    
The national economy did not reach the projected growth in 2023 and, according to the behavior shown in the last quarter, there may even be a contraction between 1-2%.
    
All of this also reflects the lack of domestic liquidity and the fact that we have to search a lot outside the borders and everything is more expensive now.

There’s a lack of credits and the arbitrary and illegal keeping of Cuba on the list published by the US State Department of those nations that supposedly sponsor terrorism does not help at all.
   
Regarding this, notice the contradictory nature of the topic, the media portal Razones de Cuba very recently denounced that: “Winds from the North blown by the order from “above” to “warm up” the end of the year in Cuba deploy a communication offensive like a hybrid war, which attempts to move from incentives to concrete counterrevolutionary and violent actions..." but the inhabitants of the archipelago are warned of such large intervention maneuvers by country-selling mercenaries settled in Florida and with allies bought on local soil.
   
These external forces came to further complicate the domestic context, first subjected to in-depth analysis in the Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Party, where the path to follow was approved just a few days before the advent of the 65th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution.
   
Hours later, the Second Ordinary Period of Sessions of the National Assembly of People's Power began in its 10th Legislature. In this area, each and every one of the phenomena that affect the situation suffered by Cuba today were addressed.
    
Taking a direct approach, critically and starting from recognizing the dissatisfaction for not having been able to comply with what was agreed for these 12 months, Marrero Cruz spoke to the deputies in a live broadcast on television, who announced the details to face the challenges of 2024.
 
Some of the projections cited for the four quarters ahead were to expand essential productive activities, provide idle capacities to produce food, better use of foreign currency and produce more with fewer resources in hard currency, while insisting on the promotion of foreign investment (currently there are more than 340 active businesses with investors from 40 countries), as a fair balance to domestic actions.
   
What will we do in 2024? Face the same challenges; but we must begin a process of searching for alternative solutions that contribute to supporting the commitments made in the plenary session at the Convention Palace which allow barriers to be overcome, protect Cubans from the attacks of the current situation of war economy and, above all, preserve the Cuban socialist social system.

Translated by Amilkal Labañino / CubaSí Translation Staff