March 27, 2012
HAVANA, Cuba.- Vice Minister of the Cuban Council of Ministers Marino Murillo stressed in Havana that the island is in the process of updating its economic model under the principle of maintaining socialism, and that it is far from making any reforms on its political system.
Speaking to hundreds of journalists from Cuba and abroad gathered at the National Hotel on the occasion of the papal visit, Murillo explained that the Economic and Social Guidelines of the Party and the Revolution are actually the foundations of the Cuban economic model which looks to achieve sustainable development and safeguard the attainments of the Revolution.
Murillo reaffirmed that the Cuban government and the Communist Party have a strong will to make the political system of the island sustainable, and added that they are open to listen and consider suggestions and new formulas that can help protect the achievements of socialism.
The Cuban official pointed out that the Revolution has unbreakable principles like nobody will be left unprotected, the search for equal conditions for the development of the people and that everyone’s main income should come from their own work.
He said with a view to foster collective work by different means thus being consequent with the socialist principle of preventing the concentration of wealth, they are studying introducing changes on the body of laws to expand the creation of cooperatives to non-agricultural sectors.
He also mentioned efforts to make state-run enterprises efficient. “We are designing formulas –he said- so that the PCC and the government can orient their efforts to make it possible for people to manage state-owned goods and means like if they were their own property, like the case of those exploiting the land on lease.”
In reference to external models Cuba may use in its economic update, Murillo said the island has studied the experiences of China, Vietnam and Russia among other nations, and made it clear that the it will not make an exact copy of any of them.
