Cuba is updating its economic model, a process that is targeting efficiency and productivity without renouncing the socialist project that began half a century ago.
The restructuring of ministries, institutes and companies, the boost of the private sector and the elimination of deficiencies such as the state-owned firm's failure to pay their debts are priorities in the transformations under way.
This economic update is based on the Guidelines approved at the 6th Congress of the Communist Party and whose implementation is being monitored by Cuban authorities.
At the latest session of the Council of Ministers in late September, debates dealt with changes in several institutions to streamline their structure and staff, and to improve their performance.
Cuban Vice President Marino Murillo, who heads the Permanent Committee for Implementation and Development of the Guidelines, said that the objective is to create concentrated and efficient companies.
According to the official, the creation of new structures will take years and is aimed at stopping undercapitalization, concentrating the productive capacities and reducing expenditures.
In Cuba, those objectives are linked to improving the quality of products, paving the way to reduce imports, another major goal in the economic update.
Speaking at the session, Cuban President Raul Castro noted that the steps taken are just the beginning of the restructuring.
On March 31, the Council of Ministers had discussed proposals to improve the performance of the ministries of Agriculture and Informatics and Communications.
Another issue within the economic update is self-employment, which groups nearly 400,000 citizens in some 180 activities, including food processing and sale, passenger transportation and house renting.
Although the Cuban government has insisted that the success of these changes includes the consolidation of an efficient socialist enterprise, the private sector must make a major contribution to the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
In that regard, Raul Castro said at the latest session of the Council of Ministers that the implementation of new forms of management is a step within the economic update that helps the State focus on major activities to develop the country's economy. The Council of Ministers also analyzed the companies' failure to pay their debts, one of the obstacles to the success of the transformations based on the Communist Party's Guidelines.
Other issues in Cuba's economic update are the extension of cooperatives to sectors other than agriculture, labor restructuring and boosting exports.