Havana city, Cuba.- This week Cuba defined its main economic and legislative projections for 2021, a year that President Miguel Diaz-Canel described as intense and challenging.

On December 17, the National People’s Power Assembly (Parliament) approved the economic plan and State budget for next year, when a gradual recovery of the main productive indicators is expected.

The goal is that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grows 6-7 percent, based on exports of goods and services, the decrease in imports and the linkages of the economic stockholders, including the non-state forms of management and foreign investment.

Speaking in Parliament, Diaz-Canel insisted that the economy will be the priority next year, when the monetary and financial overhauling, which is far from being a shock therapy or a bank freeze, will be implemented.

It is a complex but necessary measure to unblock many economic problems and implement the strategy designed until 2030, noted Diaz-Canel, who added that all concerns by the population will be taken into consideration and no one will be unprotected.

In that regard, the budget approved by Parliament keeps its emphasis on social expenditures, particularly public health, social assistance and education.

Two acts were passed during the 6th Session of the 9th Legislature. They were related to the functioning of provincial governments and the municipal administration councils.

With those acts, the State’s institutionality is completed, as changes were required after the coming into force of the new Constitution in April 2019.

The Parliament also agreed to readjust the legislative timetable, according to which ten acts will be debated next year and 15 in 2022.

This week, Cuba participated in the 18th Virtual Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America-People’s Trade Treaty (ALBA-TCP), at which Havana ratified its willingness to contribute to international cooperation in the fight the Covid-19 pandemic and to solve other problems.

Likewise, Cuba participated in the Informal Ministerial Meeting of the European Union with Latin America and the Caribbean, at which it reaffirmed the importance of safeguarding the CELAC-European Union Mechanism and preventing the exclusion of countries from the area such as Venezuela.