Permanent Commissions of the National Assembly of People’s Power (ANPP) today evaluated economic issues of Cuba’s Government Programme related to the increase and diversification of the country’s external income.

The meeting was headed by Esteban Lazo Hernández, president of the Cuban Parliament and the Council of State, and Ana María Mari Machado, vice-president of the ANPP, according to the Assembly’s X account.

The document presented for discussion was in charge of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, the ANPP said.

During the last Council of Ministers held on 7 April, Oscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, head of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, reported that 13 organisations and entities reported economic effects in the execution of their foreign trade operations.

He pointed out that among the main causes of this situation are non-compliance with the agreements signed with clients and suppliers; superficiality in the selection of clients and suppliers; deficiencies in the payment clauses of the contracts, as well as in the prior analysis of possible collection routes; cumbersome, dispersed and lengthy procedures; lack of rigour on the part of foreign trade companies to guarantee the extraction of containers; and insufficient management in the collection of exports.

More than 95 % of the total economic effects correspond to expenses due to delays, in which the import management of food and fuel ships, difficulties with logistics and problems in the clearance, extraction and return of containers have an impact, the minister commented.