Manuel Marrero Cruz, member of the Political Bureau and Prime Minister, defined the Government Program to correct distortions and boost the economy during the year 2025, approved by the members of the Council of Ministers in the first meeting of this year of the highest government body, which was headed by the First Secretary of the Party Central Committee and President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, as a "transversal issue, which includes all the essences and policies of the economic and social life of the country".
In presenting the main elements that define the Program, the Head of Government recalled that in the Council of Ministers held last December, the proposals of objectives and projections, the work system and the steps for its elaboration were presented and approved.
The fact, he said, allows us to broaden the scope of the actions and to move from the Government Projections to this Government Program, which is made up of objectives, projections, actions, indicators and goals, a timetable with compliance dates and responsible parties.
There were many previous exchanges, at all levels, before reaching this moment, said Marrero Cruz, who also highlighted the contribution made to enrich the Program by the different considerations and recommendations received, as well as the application of science and research results.
What was approved by the Council of Ministers includes a detailed action plan for its implementation, with special emphasis on the new mechanism for the management, control and allocation of foreign currency for all economic actors, the implementation of the foreign exchange market, and the partial dollarization of the economy.
These projections, said Marrero Cruz, are vital to advance in the rest of the Government Program, especially because of the impact they have on two of the key objectives: "To increase and diversify the country's foreign income" and "The increase of the national production, with emphasis on food".
In general, he stressed the importance of consolidating a system of "work that allows us sustainability in the follow-up and control of what we have foreseen", and for this it is essential to have a constant analysis at all levels, especially the progress of the measures that have the greatest impact on the population and the communities.
The first topic of the meeting - as usual since last year - was dedicated to evaluate the status of the implementation of the Government's Projections to correct distortions and to boost the economy in 2024 and January 2025.
In general terms, regarding what has been done in 2024, the First Deputy Minister of Economy and Planning, Mildrey Granadillo de la Torre, said that, of the 101 projections included in the Action Plan to fulfill the eight objectives, 51 are approved and in the process of implementation, including the development of social programs such as those associated with the attention to demographic dynamics, the advancement of women, and the attention to children, adolescents and young people.
Specifically for the year 2025, she detailed that, among other things, progress has been made in the analysis of proposals to strengthen the capabilities of the Mariel Special Development Zone, as a place for attracting foreign direct investment; the procedural proposal for the implementation of the Resolution of the Ministry of Internal Trade on the commercial activity of non-state economic actors was presented, as well as the follow-up, due to its importance, to the implementation of the new mechanism for the management, control and allocation of foreign currency and the proposal for the official exchange market.
CONTINUITY OF STUDIES PLAN
As part of the meeting's agenda, the Plan for the continuity of studies for graduates from ninth grade, pre-university and other sources was approved, with the participation of the territorial governments, the provincial commissions for the training and employment of skilled labor force and the training and advisory bodies.
The design of the plan was based on, among other elements, the Comprehensive Policy on Children, Adolescents and Young People; the guarantee of continuity of studies for all graduates; the demand for graduates for the development of investments and the export of services in the health sector, as well as the government's projection to improve the process of planning the training and distribution of the skilled labor force with the training agencies.
According to what was expressed at the meeting:
109,891 places were planned, of which 47 % are for pre-university education, which are generally increasing in relation to the previous course, although decreasing in provinces such as Ciego de Ávila, Las Tunas and Santiago de Cuba, as well as in the special municipality of Isle of Youth.
In the structure of entry to technical and professional education, 49,280 places are for middle-level technical specialties and 8,795 for skilled workers.
The granting of places favors the priority sectors of the food, health, construction, electro-energy, tourism, pharmaceutical industry and railroad programs.
For higher education, 54,547 places are planned for higher and technical education.
For the higher technician, 12,457 places are foreseen for higher business management bodies, agencies and organizations, with 77% of the places being concentrated in the Ministry of Public Health, with a total of 22 courses.
In the case of teaching and medical science courses, although they show a decrease of 5% with respect to the previous period, they constitute 59% of the total number of higher education positions to be offered.
This, said the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera, who was in charge of presenting the matter, guarantees the continuity of studies to all ninth grade graduates, and more than one option to continue studies in Higher Education to all graduates of pre-university education, at the same time that it has a better correspondence between the training of the skilled work force and the needs of the territories.
On the subject, the Minister of Higher Education, Walter Baluja García, considered that it has a direct impact on the development of the nation. "A country that bets on a government management system based on science and innovation has to bet in the medium and long term on an increase in the enrollment of young people who are in universities."
In this sense, he called attention to a group of factors associated with the socioeconomic reality of the country, the blockade, the pandemic and others, which have deteriorated the enrollment rate, which also influences aspects such as academic efficiency.
One of the greatest challenges facing the Cuban education system, he said, is to provide "vocational and professional guidance that will allow us to increase the number of students who intend to access and will access higher education in the coming years".
OTHER ITEMS ON THE AGENDA
At the meeting, in which the members of the Council of Ministers also approved the Plan of the topics to be analyzed in the current year, both in the Government body itself and in its Executive Committee, the Prime Minister referred, among other matters, to the development of the municipal meetings of the People's Power to discuss the Plan of the Economy and the State Budget for the current year.
In these meetings, he stressed, despite the work done, there are still shortcomings that we are in time to correct and clarify. In this regard, he pointed out that not all the plans and budgets presented clearly define the alignment with the municipal development strategy; the maintenance and repair plans do not always take into account the constituents' proposals, as well as the actions to continue working in the neighborhoods undergoing transformation.
And although in many cases it is satisfactory that actions have been included to increase income and also to reduce expenses, they are not always reflected in the search for greater production based on the potential of the territories to satisfy the demands of the population.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNDER DEBATE
At the end of the meeting of the Council of Ministers, in which the main leaders of the Party and the Government from all territories participated via videoconference, the head of Communications, Mayra Arevich Marín, presented the Strategy for the development and use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Cuba, which is part of the country's Digital Transformation Policy.
Ethics and regulatory framework, human capital, its applications and services, public administration, science and innovation, and social communication make up the six main axes of the Cuban strategy, which proposes in its projections the gradual and growing incorporation of AI in everyday processes, prioritizing those that impact the economy and social welfare, with responsibility and managing the ethical challenges involved in its use and development.
Despite the many challenges involved in the development of AI, especially for a country with the economic limitations that Cuba has, the President of the Republic emphasized the priority that must be given to its development, always based on a preparation that involves its adequate, revolutionary and innovative use.
In this regard, he insisted on the importance of clearly defining "how each agency and each institution is presenting in concrete terms what it is doing in terms of digital transformation and what it is doing in terms of Artificial Intelligence, the latter with a possibility of raising productivity to very high levels in the processes in which it is applied".
For a country like ours, he explained, which today is "extremely attacked, blocked, that we are preparing to face an ultraconservative, dominant hegemonic policy of contempt towards the peoples of America, the optimization that we can make of all our processes is very important, and that we have to solve, among other things, with the proper use, I would say with a revolutionary use, also innovative, of artificial intelligence, and for that the first thing we have to have is a culture of artificial intelligence".
From the Palace of the Revolution, the working day also included an exchange with the main authorities of the provinces that in recent months were affected by the passage of hurricanes Oscar, which hit the Guantánamo territory; and Rafael, which hit the western provinces of Artemisa, Havana and Mayabeque.
Likewise, the situation in Santiago de Cuba and Granma was reviewed, after the heavy damages caused by the earthquakes that occurred at the end of last year.
Each territory reported on the current status of the various sectors affected by the natural phenomena, the problems that have been solved, and how much remains to be done to continue advancing in the recovery.
