Business & Economy

The lack of liquidity in hard currency is the principal economic problem in Cuba, affirmed the island’s Economy Minister Marino Murillo. According to the official, the government’s strategy involves the substitution of imports and giving priority to sectors such as tourism, telecommunications and civil aeronautics.

A new gas-driven power generation plant will be installed in Cienfuegos, 230 kilometers southeast of the Cuban capital, by the Energas S.A. joint venture, with a capacity of 150 megawatts, reported IPS.

Mobile telephone service in Cuba closed 2009 with 600,000 clients (of the 11.2 million Cubans), said First Deputy Minister of Communications Ramón Linares Torres. Nonetheless, obtaining and using a cell phone is only in CUC, the island’s hard currency, not the regular pesos which Cubans earn for their salaries.

A Cuban-Venezuelan company will be in charge of building a new international airport in the city of Cap Haitien, reported IPS citing official sources in Port-au-Prince. The work will cost 33 million dollars, which will be defrayed by a loan from Venezuela to be paid in 25 years.

Varadero beach resort, 120 kilometers east of the Cuban capital, today received its millionth tourist for 2009, a figure that confirms it as one of the country’s principal tourist destinations, reported IPS. The peninsula located in Matanzas Province welcomes 40 per cent of the tourists who come to the island; today there are 48 hotels.

Cuba plans to rehabilitate agricultural production in the Valley of Caujerí, in the eastern province of Guantánamo, thanks to a joint project with China that will make it possible to recover the irrigation infrastructure and organization, valued at 1.1 billion US dollars

A decrease in work productivity was registered in 2009, mainly caused by the “superfluous or excess use of payrolls in many of the country’s activities,” admitted Osvaldo Martínez, chairman of the Economic Affairs Committee of the National Assembly (parliament).

Cuba’s Gross Domestic Product will grow 1.9 in 2010, according to the state budget law approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power (parliament). According to official data, the island’s economy grew 1.4 per cent in 2009.

Cuba’s Minister of Economy Marino Murillo announced in his speech to the Cuban parliament a reduction in “social spending since the economy can not withstand its substantial amounts.” “Experiments are being carried out and work is going on in others to lighten the burden for the state in some services provided.”