Import of food will become more expensive

A service by the Radio Progreso Alternativa Havana Bureau

The coming year Cuba will have to pay $250 million more than in 2006 for the same amount of food products. The information was obtained through a report submitted to a permanent commission of Cuba’s parliament by Pedro Álvarez, president of ALIMPORT, the Cuban government’s food import agency. 

According to Álvarez, the increase is due to higher food prices as well as in shipping rates.      

Cuba spends over one billion dollars for 75% of the food products that are distributed to the population at subsidized prices. 

Electrical appliances still unpaid for As part of the Energy Revolution launched by the Cuban government which has practically eliminated blackouts, energy saving electrical appliances such as stoves, rice and pressure cookers, fans, air conditioners, refrigerators and TV sets were sold to the population.   

The appliances may be bought on a cash-and-carry basis or on generous credit — in both cases at subsidized prices — but payment of credit debt has been slow.   

Georgina Barreiro, Minister of Finances, reported to one of the commissions of the Cuban parliament that payments are still at 74 percent.  

Only the provinces of Havana, City of Havana, Matanzas, Camagüey, Las Tunas, Holguín y Guantánamo, which are half of the existing provinces in the country, are below that percentage. 

Offer less than demand 

Frank Castañeda, director of the National Enterprise for Wholesale Buying, submitted a report to the Commission for Productive Activity of the National Assembly of Popular Power (Cuban parliament), saying that the offer at state-run agricultural markets satisfies only 75 percent of the demand.  

According to the official, the reasons for the deficit are lack of transportation and the horrible state of that machinery, lack of working materials and insufficient preparation of cultivated land. 

The state-run agricultural markets have fixed prices, unlike the so called “free markets” where offer and demand rule. At the latter, product quality is higher than in the government markets. 

Meanwhile, the 16th Plenary of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), which has 100,000 members and represents 62 percent of agricultural production, was in session.

At the meeting, crop losses were blamed on problems with contracts between farmers and wholesale buyers. The issue of money owed to farmers, which at a time reached a debt of 25 million pesos and has already been paid, as well as transportation, were mentioned as factors that influence produce loss.  

Cycle of conferences continues 

The Juan Marinello Center for Research and Development of Cuban Culture announces the conference, “The Post-Revolutionary Regime in the USSR. Fundamental Traits and Historical Process of the So Called Stalinism”, by researcher Ariel Dacal.   

The conference, which will be held on Friday, June 29, at the Center, is part of the monthly sessions of “The Bolshevik Revolution: History of the USSR and Cuba. A Socialist Critical Analysis from the 21st Century” permanent workshop, sponsored by the institution’s Antonio Gramsci Department of Studies. Admission is free. 

Chinese political leader in Cuba 

Yang Yue, Permanent Secretary of the Central Committee of China’s Young Communist League, arrived in Havana for an official visit.

At the airport the Chinese leader was greeted by Julio Martínez, First Secretary of Cuba’s Young Communist Union, who said to the press that the Asian country “is playing an important role in the world’s balance.”  

In the past few months there have been frequent visits by top leaders from the Chinese government, as well as from that country’s Communist Party and its Armed Forces.

Foreign investments at a record high 

Marta Lomas, the Cuban Minister for Foreign Investment and Economic Collaboration, reported to lawmakers at parliament’s Commission of Economic Matters that in 2006 Cuba had record direct revenues of $981 million from foreign investments. The figure is 22 percent higher than in 2005.  

According to a report by Prensa Latina news agency, Lomas pointed out that the main existing contracts of administration and joint ventures are in the Ministry of Basic Industry, the Cuban sector with the heaviest investments of foreign capital, which includes among other branches that of oil, and production and distribution of electric power.

Countries with the largest investments in Cuba are Spain, Canada, Italy and France, “as well as China and Venezuela, with who we work in an accelerated manner in search of more integration,” said Minister Lomas.