HAVANA, Dec 30 (Xinhua): After a 1.2 per cent economic growth this year, Cuba seeks to increase its efficiency and exports to reach greater development in 2019, amid financial tensions due to cash constraints and reinforced US sanctions.
Although well below the expected 2.0 per cent growth in the country's GDP, the figure is "commendable," according to Cuban government officials, after two years of very low growth and recession.
"It's an encouraging figure as the economy continues to recover within an adverse scenario," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said recently at the closing ceremony of the country's parliament session.
Economic losses amounting to 13 billion US dollars, due to hurricane Irma last year and the rains associated with tropical storm Alberto in mid-2018, harshly impacted the country's monetary plan.
Other negative elements included a shortage in hard currencies to pay foreign debts, Cuba's Minister of Economy and Planning Alejandro Gil told lawmakers.
Gil said the Caribbean nation is working on updating its economic model in a "complex scenario" marked by a setback in relations with the United States and "financial persecution" by Washington as it continues its six-decade old embargo.
The blockade causes an annual financial loss of 4.3 billion dollars, he said. "Our country would be able to grow much more if the United States lifts the blockade," he added.
Key challenges for Cuba in the year ahead include drawing more foreign investments, increasing exports of its signature products and medical services, attracting more tourists and boosting efficiency in state-owned companies and factories, experts have said.
Accelerating the nation's investment rate, which currently is around 11 per cent of the GDP, must be done next year in order to guarantee "dynamic and sustainable" development, Rodrigo Malmierca, minister of foreign trade and investment, said recently.
"Increasing foreign investment in Cuba is an essential factor to our economic growth as the country needs around 2.0 billion dollars a year of external capital to reach an investment rate of 20 per cent of our GDP," Malmierca said.
Malmierca added that this year, 40 new joint or foreign projects were authorized for over 1.5 billion dollars.
"Since the approval of the new foreign investment law in 2014, around 5.5 billion US dollars have been committed in different industries, particularly in the Mariel Special Development Zone," he said.
In terms of tourism, Cuba will close out this year with a new record in the arrival of international tourists reaching 4.75 million, a 1.3 per cent increase from 2017, a senior official from the island's Ministry of Tourism (MINTUR) said at a press conference on Dec 20.
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