Raul Castro Says Fixing Cuba's Economy His Top Priority

Raul Castro Says Fixing Cuba's Economy His Top Priority

HAVANA – Cuban President Raul Castro has urged his government to work
"in a sustained and irreversible way" to fix the country's "complex
economic problems," Communist Party daily Granma said Friday.

Gen. Castro gave those instructions on May 28 at a meeting of Cuba's
National Defense Council, attended by the government's top-ranking
officials.

Besides improving the economy, he emphasized the need to "increase the
country's ability to deal with disaster situations," Granma said.

He also insisted on "consolidating and strengthening the nation's
command structure to deal with exceptional situations of all kinds" and
"paying special attention to the size and composition" of the armed forces.

"We must continue getting prepared, depending more and more on the
results of our own efforts, strengthening our capability for struggle
and resistance, increasing the work of convincing and mobilizing the
masses, and consolidating the ideological strength of our people,"
Castro said.

Presented at the meeting were the results of the 2009 drive to increase
the island's defense capability, as well as a resume of the strategic
military exercise Bastion during that year, considered Cuba's biggest
military deployment in the past five years.

Also analyzed at the meeting were the island's readiness to deal with
natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis and hurricanes, and
"preventive missions" to protect the country from the results of
accidents like the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

In that sense, Castro said that Cuba has the "greatest experience" at
dealing with hurricanes, but mentioned the danger from tsunamis and
earthquakes, for which planning "with foresight" is essential.

"We see how important it is to prepare for natural disasters and have
everything thought out beforehand," he said.

Cuba is facing a critical economic situation and an acute lack of
liquidity brought on, according to the government, by such factors as
the global recession, the continued U.S. economic embargo of the island
and the three hurricanes in 2008 that caused losses estimated at $10 billon.

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