Havana, Cuba.- Cuba and the United Nations Organization for Industrial Development (Onudi) discussed today the strategy and state of cooperation in the framework of Cubaindustria 2018.

In the panel’s opening session, the director of Industrial Policy and Technological Development of Ministry of Industries (Mindus), Hilda Morales, explained that Cuba has projects aimed at generating statistical capacities, and in other strategic sectors such as the production of agrochemicals, agricultural machinery and in the creative industry.

She reported that another project related to the strengthening of packaging in the area, in correspondence with the Mindus’ policy and directly contributing to the import substitution, was presented at the Packaging Congress.

For his part, the director of Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment (Mincex), Carlos Fidel Martinez, explained that two years ago in the 2nd edition of Cubaindustria, the Onudi Cuba Country Program was officially presented for the years 2016-2020, a programmatic framework of cooperation for inclusive and sustainable industrial development, a new stage of collaboration.

This reaffirmed the interest in increasing industrial competitiveness, achieving shared prosperity for the benefit of all parties involved, prioritizing the development of business initiatives, supporting new business management models, and increasing the participation of women and young people in decision-making, as well as to boost innovation, knowledge exchange, technology transfer and investment promotion.

Martinez noted that the coordination work with the United Nations system based in Cuba is fully articulated with the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (Manud) for the period 2014-2019.

About the event, he said that it is time to evaluate the successes, challenges and potential of the current cooperation with Onudi, the ongoing projects with the generous help of the Russian government, the Korea Cooperation Agency and the contribution of the European Union.