Three apparently indirectly related news items motivated these lines. Not too long ago the magazine Nature, one of the most prestigious scientific publications in the world, published an article where it affirmed that Cuban science can be “Global.” On Wednesday it was published in Cuba that UNESCO is forecasting a deficit of teachers worldwide for the next decade. But in September of this year, when the school year was inaugurated in Cuba, it was also announced that we already have a deficit of teachers. The “machine for the production of scientists,” a decisive part of the “science-making machine,” which has been one of the best achieved creations of the Cuban socialist project since 1959, is today facing practically unprecedented challenges. It’s not that we didn’t have important scientists before 1959. It would be false to affirm something like this, but what we did not have before that year was a system capable of massively producing high-quality scientists. The University we have today is the direct product, but evolved, of the University Reform approved on January 10, 1962, a reform carried out to put that University inherited from the underdeveloped capitalism in tune with the development effort the country needed. Two...

Some historians say that sugar entered Cuba by Puerto Güincho, in Nuevitas, Camagüey, coming from the neighbor island Hispaniola. It came to stay, even in spite of ourselves. In a month or a little more, the sugarcane harvest will start again in the country. The sugar industry (today still based on the production of sugar crystals and some syrup’s by-products) will have to become our “sugarcane industry” sometime, and eventually, we will be able to profit from all the potential of the grass. Sugarcane—either starting from the plant or as a final destination—perhaps represents one of the biggest chances the archipelago has to boost a productive transformation process that may help us to live in a prosperous country. This achievement will depend on a lot of factors, but mainly on the change of many “settled mind-sets” used to their way of thinking and doing in the industry. Cuba has a relation of love and hate, enthusiasm and frustration with sugar; this is no doubt an almost fetishist perception of the product. All our history, our culture, and a good deal of the Cuban imaginary have revolved around the cane juice, the sugarloaf, the syrup, the spirits, and, of course, the...

The news that the intricate village of Motembo, in Villa Clara, could rise up out of anonymity and play a decisive role in the Cuban economy over the coming years, hit the press over the last few days. Estimates of probable oil stocks announced by the Australian company MEO in the area called Block 9 have rescued Motembo from the oblivion of 100 years, because it was there, in the nineteenth century, where the first well of light crude oil Cuba was discovered. Many expectations and new hopes were created following the announcement, in times in which the reduction of oil supplies from Venezuela has raised in many the spectre of the Special Period. However, the news that it brought to my mind was the once more the reality of the evil that we have suffered for most of our history as a country: the energy dependence we have carried from the early twentieth century. In Economics, dependence has many dimensions: energy, food, technological, financial, commercial ... Cuba suffers them all. Some have also increased in these times, the result of the long crisis that we suffered from the early nineties of the last century and which we have not...

Having a development plan that runs until 2030 does not mean that in 2030 Cuba will be a developed country. Now that the archipelago has begun to discuss the documents from the Seventh Party Congress, where the development model that we want to achieve is set out. In order for it to be prosperous; I think that the topic of the moment, or that of time management, is decisive. Advancing along the path of development with a plan (I would have preferred to call it a program) means that we work together in a coordinated and determined way looking for that plan. It also means that this plan will have to undergo constant updates throughout the years, right up until 2030. The first step with then be to agree about what development we want and what is the standing of the development that we can aspire towards, being, as we are, a poor country, still subject to an embargo, whose population is ostensibly decreasing and aging. We cannot take a great leap forwards in development because we have many accumulated deficits. In essential areas (like that of computerisation) we are advancing at a speed which is slower than the rest...

If we could calculate how much, in terms of lost revenue, services no longer lent, and interrupted labour, we would have in our hands a very illustrative resource to help understand just how important it is to rely on a good, modern, and efficient ‘infrastructure’. In the documents approved in the 7th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party, and whose discussion, who for all those who want to participate in life in the island, it has already begun: a group of ‘strategic areas’ with which to reach development, are described . What is infrastructure, economically speaking? It is a group of sectors and activities, that provide services or guarantee access to services that facilitate people’s daily life. As much in their productive tasks as when they are quietly watching TV. A simple example of sectors of infrastructure are those of energy, transport, communications, water and sanitation. Obviously if we want to productively transform the country and insert ourselves, with real profits, into the global economy, infrastructure is decisive.  But infrastructure is also essential if we want to achieve a sustainable development, if we really want to be prosperous, if we aspire to greater equality. Including, if Cuba wants to be...

Cuba did not arrive at Obama’s presidential visit with its head bowed and hands supplicating. It arrived, that’s correct, with clothes stained with the vicissitudes of 56 years of self-abandonment and of resisting the jostling of a neighbour… a neighbour that became an enemy because of the decisions of many former president elects before Obama came. It seems that this neighbour understood that force and anger only generates more force and anger. The visit and its results have generated all kinds of impressions and positions. Back in his country many have criticised the American leader for daring to take this step. From this side of the Florida Straits some are more focused on highlighting the threats than the opportunities arising from this visit. It would seem that the critics here and there would prefer another 56 years of embargo instead of trying the path to normalisation. These are the paradoxes of a reality that seems to change more quickly than some of its protagonists. From my perspective the outcome of this visit for Cuba is very positive. Augustín Lage has listed the outcomes and I agree wholeheartedly. The President of the United States did not come here to demand submission,...

Today I’d like to do one of those ‘close your eyes and imagine’ exercises. I’d like to think of some of the consequences and the challenges that the bilateral changes between the United States and Cuba mean.  I’m going to start with one that is nearly a done deal: the establishment of regular flights. What does at least 10 daily flights landing at Havana Airport mean? First of all it will mean more income from ground operations and for landing permission, it will also impact revenue from airport taxes. Without a doubt our taxi drivers will earn more. The increase in American visitors will cause a rise in the demand for rooms in hotels, hostels, and private rental houses, and a greater demand on services of all types, particularly restaurants and car rentals… And, as in essence tourism is first and foremost and adventure, even the everyday “boteros” will benefit from the tourists. How much will this mean in terms of revenue? No idea, but it’s not an insignificant amount. The other side of the airport coin is the challenge it presents from an operational point of view. Those who travel often know how far the Cuban terminals are from...

After growing 4{bb302c39ef77509544c7d3ea992cb94710211e0fa5985a4a3940706d9b0380de} in 2015, after 1{bb302c39ef77509544c7d3ea992cb94710211e0fa5985a4a3940706d9b0380de} in 2014, the Cuban economy is projected to grow 2{bb302c39ef77509544c7d3ea992cb94710211e0fa5985a4a3940706d9b0380de} in 2016. Reverting to a rate of growth lower than 3{bb302c39ef77509544c7d3ea992cb94710211e0fa5985a4a3940706d9b0380de} is not the best news, even when this growth is after the best rate of growth that the national economy has reached in the last six years. It’s also logical to think that this growth of 2{bb302c39ef77509544c7d3ea992cb94710211e0fa5985a4a3940706d9b0380de} will influence the improvement plans for the country, by reducing the total product available in 2016, as much for consumption as for investment. This rate of growth will be achieved in a complex environment with a mixed meaning for the national economy. On one hand the International Monetary Fund anticipates that the global economy will shrink. In our region, the countries that have led the growth for years find themselves stagnating. For Cuba, the political events in Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and the weak economic performance of the first two aforementioned countries have become the biggest threats in the short and medium term given their sizeable presence in the Cuban foreign market. In the case of Venezuela, its role in asset trading, fundamentally in oil supply (approximately 100,000 barrels a day) and its significant role in...