According to the Cuban National Housing Institute, only 61% of the country’s housing stock, ie three million households, is in good condition , the rest is in regular or poor shape.
The housing phenomenon is one of the key points and never resolved within Cuban society. From weather impacts in the last ten years, and the direct involvement of a million homes, the Cuban Government developed and promoted a new strategy: self-made construction. This was implemented through grants, credits and other individual facilities replacing the presence of companies or mediators.
On December 2011, it was approved up to eighty thousand Cuban pesos (CUP) per house. We speak of a basic cell of about twenty-five square meters, with bathroom and kitchen. This included also credits between 5 000 and 10 000 CUP for minor construction activities.
Now, with the approval of the Agreement 7837th of the Council of Ministers , in June, the amounts increased and paying ability was facilitated. One of the significant novelties is the inclusion of state house tenants and those who dwell in citadels. Previously, only homeowners could apply for loans.
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Since early July, 124 cooperatives belonging to various sectors stormed into the Cuban economic scenario. In addition to 99 entities of the agricultural branch, distributed between the provinces of Havana, Mayabeque and Artemisa, it is worth naming five other cooperatives linked to passenger transportation by small buses. Moreover, in Artemisa and Mayabeque will also start operating two waste recovery cooperatives.
There are also about twelve of these entities related to the construction sector, and other activities would be the sheet metal work, car washing, inflating and repairing tires and mechanics. The creation of these cooperatives responds primarily to the union of former self-employed workers, now in a more profitable and complex organizational stage.
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Marino Murillo, vice president of the Council of Ministers, said before the Parliament that the conditions to begin next year entrepreneurial experiments within the updating of Cuban economic model were already created.
According to Prensa Latina News Agency, the Cuban Government is proposing to create a new directive for eliminating administrative barriers in the payment of wages and, more importantly, it would be impossible to increase the workers´ income if the company is not able to fund it with its profits , which suggests a clear idea of self management. This, without deteriorating the wage spending per planned gross value added.
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On July 7 , during the closing remarks of the First Regular Session of the Eighth Legislature of the National Assembly, Raul Castro said that the Cuban economy showed “a positive behavior in midst of external stresses, the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy and our own inadequacies. ”
Then he added the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) increased in 2.3%, lower than planned but two tenths higher than the growth in the first half of last year. However, he acknowledged that “the behavior of GDP is not noticeable still in the economy of the average Cuban family.”
On another note, Raul addressed the issue of the dual currency and he told that its elimination was an essential requirement in order to reverse the inverted social pyramid. As a striking fact, between forms of widespread corruption, he echoed the recurring ethical violations in the educational sector. After commenting that Cuban society seemed increasingly educated, but not necessarily more cultured, he admitted that there were cases of teacher and family who were involved in acts of academic fraud.
