Raul Castro chairs "national seminar on Economic Changes"

Raul Castro chairs "national seminar on Economic Changes"
14:56, November 12, 2010

Cuban leader Raul Castro chaired here Thursday the first session of the
national seminar on the "Draft Guidelines of the Economic and Social
Changes".

The meeting, to last till Saturday, was attended by 523 chosen communist
leaders, including members of the Political Bureau, the CCP Central
Committee Secretariat, ministers, party leaders, and other officials.

The leaders will explain the "Guidelines" of the new changes to party
members at the party's grass-roots organizations and later to the Cuban
people.

During a brief speech, Castro stressed the importance of "doing a good
job in explaining the party's document to grass-roots party members,
workers and the rest of the communities."

The "guidelines" will be discussed at the sixth Congress of the CCP,
which will be held in April 2011.

Cuban authorities published on Tuesday an official document explaining
the guidelines of the economic and social policy for the next five years.

These "guidelines" include a new model of economic management, the
macroeconomic policies, the foreign economic policy and the investment
policy.

The new measures include the implementation of a plan to cut more than
500,000 jobs in the bloated public sectors, allowing its people to start
small businesses in 178 different professions after 42 years of total
state control over the economy.

Since he took office in 2007, Castro has repeatedly urged to restructure
the Cuban economic model for a better use of the human and material
resources, in order to improve the weak national economy affected by the
global financial crisis and the U.S. embargo.

Source: Xinhua

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