Bitter lessons on planning

Jorge Luis Baños-IPS/jlbimagenes@yahoo.es

Though much less than the planned amount, crude sugar production grew 8 percent during the recently concluded harvest.

Hurricane Sandy entered through the coasts of eastern Cuba at dawn of Wednesday October 24, 2012 and punished that region of the country a month before the start of the Cuban sugar harvest. The hurricane ruined sugar fields and the optimistic forecasts of the AzCuba Business Group published by the daily Granma nine days before Sandy crossed the island. But the cyclone was not the only cause of the non-fulfilment of the plan, nor the most important, judging by the recent balance of the sector’s authorities.


The cooperatives are here

Archivo IPS Cuba

After confirming their efficiency in agriculture, the Cuban government decided to extend that structure to the rest of the economy.

Cooperatives in the non-agricultural sector of the Cuban economy finally made their appearance this July after prevailing among the agricultural productive structures. The step is, according to many local observers, one of the boldest among the measures assumed by the government. And it is one of the reasons that move the authorities to speak of the start of a more complex and profound stage in the economic reform undertaken under the title of “Updating of the economic model.”


Code undergoes popular review

Jorge Luis Baños-IPS/jlbimagenes@yahoo.es

The principal regulating labour law in Cuba is being debated in all the country’s trade union sections to adapt it to the multiple changes in the economy.

After 28 years under a legal shield worn out especially by the changes that followed the economic crisis of the 1990s, Cuban workers started debating on July 20 a new Draft of the Labour Law Code. The process will last until Oct. 15. The date was announced to the parliamentary committees during the recent session of the National Assembly of People’s Power by the chairman of the Organising Committee of the 20th Congress of the Central Organisation of Cuban Trade Unions (CTC), Ulises Guilarte.


Cuba gets hooked on cell phones

Archivo IPS

With an annual 20 percent growth in telephony since 2008, especially mobile phones, the largest of the Antillean Islands has alleviated its low telephonic density.

Cuba could close the year with more than two million cell phone lines, according to the recent forecast made by the executives of the National Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) in the Mesa Rodonda TV programme, more given in recent times to dealing with domestic or national problems.


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