At the same time, Gil estimated an economic growth in 2022 of 4%.

“The key to reaching that figure will be to secure control over the Covid-19 pandemic, and if we achieve it by the end of that year we will be able to reach that growth,” he said.

Gil pointed out that the growth is not based on more exports but on a greater participation of national production.

During the eighth ordinary session of the ninth legislature, Gil who is also deputy prime minister referred to a gradual economic growth in the last three quarters, a period preceded by 21 months of contraction in a context of intensification of the U.S. economic, commercial and financial blockade and the scourge of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The Minister acknowledged that in that scenario the country took measures that strengthened the socialist state enterprise and other actors in the Cuban economy, as well as the increase of agricultural productions.

Other results of the year were implementation of the economic and social strategy, improvement of neighborhoods and communities, attention to people and communities in vulnerable situations and progress in the National Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030.

However, the Deputy Prime Minister emphasized the issues to be overcome, among them the more than 500 state-owned companies with losses and the partial dollarization of the economy in inter-company relations and with private enterprises.

Deviations originated from the design of the money regulation which shot up retail inflation are another of the main problems to be dealth with, he said.

mh/mem/cdg