Havana, Cuba.- “If the local development strategy does not fully embrace the potentialities of the municipality, it must be revised,” made clear in the province of Guantanamo, the member of the Political Bureau of the Party and prime minister of the Republic, Manuel Marrero Cruz.
He spoke of the mountains and the variety of agricultural foods feasible to produce in them, and called to exploit those capacities, so that to the lomerío it is only necessary to take to it what cannot be produced there. “It is necessary to plant -and not only coffee- up to the last quarter of land”, he defended, alluding to localities like Maisí, and urged to promote organoponics and to grow food in backyards and family plots.
Promoting “an ambitious development strategy” in Baracoa, based on the municipality’s reserves, was another idea defended by the governor, who urged to “concretize a real productive chain; we cannot continue exporting raw materials such as cocoa, we have to achieve finished products and add value to them”. Similar was his reasoning about another emblematic crop of the Primacy: coconut (in Baracoa the country obtains 85% of that production).
About the results and projections of Guantánamo in the economic, social and services branches, Marrero Cruz, before passing judgment, heard from Governor Alis Azahares Torreblanca a broad explanation, complemented in specific aspects by mayors of some municipalities, and comments from Yoel Pérez García, member of the Central Committee of the Party and its First Secretary in the territory.
And he learned about recent initiatives aimed at solving vital demands, such as food for the inhabitants of Caimanera, and milk for the Combinado Lácteo of the province.
The Empresa Salinera here is promoting the project of one of those MSMEs to be born in the image and likeness of those that Cuba is rethinking in its local development strategy, and in search of food security. In this case, the entity -already in gestation- will supply Caimanera with agricultural products; it will produce them in a land adjacent to the western outskirts of the municipality.
The Dairy is working on something similar; it has been assigned an area in Niceto Pérez to promote cattle raising and, in addition to meat, to guarantee with its own facilities at least part of the volume of milk demanded by its industry.Manuel Marrero Cruz welcomed these initiatives aimed at the endogenous development of Guantánamo; he requested to accelerate the search for local alternatives for the construction and repair of housing, and encouraged to respond in a different and more agile way to the needs of the territory in this area.
Regarding the announced decisions, which are aimed at correcting the country’s economy, Marrero Cruz reiterated that “these are not shock measures, nor a neoliberal package”; he spoke of continuing to eliminate dirt floors, of having a maternity home in every municipality, of giving priority to the most vulnerable