Cuba moves on without Castro

Dec 23, 2006 10:12:47

HAVANA – Fidel Castro’s chair was empty Friday, but Cuban lawmakers quickly approved a spending plan for 2007 in their first session since he fell ill, a sign the Communist government will sail ahead without the bearded leader at its helm. The empty chair on the stage facing rows of more than 500 National Assembly deputies was a gaping reminder of the 80-year-old Castro’s illness and the doubts about whether the once larger-than-life leader will one day sit there again. The empty seat also underscored the widespread belief that no major changes in Cuba’s economic system will occur while he is alive. His brother Raul is believed to favor modest economic opening. Unlike his more loquacious older sibling, the 75-year-old defense minister did not make any extemporaneous speeches or query ministers giving economic reports, and instead listened quietly. The meeting, which reported economic results for 2006 and plans for 2007, began on time and went into a recess exactly two hours later. Cuban finance officials acknowledged in an unusually critical year-end report that the country’s economy is still suffering the affects of the severe crisis of the 1990s but nevertheless grew 12.5?percent in 2006. Cuban Economics Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez defended the method used to calculate the island’s gross domestic product growth figure, which includes the free health, education and other social services the communist country provides its citizens. “Cuba doesn’t falsify its statistics, nor does it manipulate them with electoral ends,” Rodriguez told a year-end session of the National Assembly, or parliament. Cuba’s methodology makes the country’s economic growth figures difficult to compare with those of other countries, prompting the United Nation’s Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean to leave the island’s numbers out of its report last year. This year, the U.N. commission, known as ECLAC, appeared to have accepted the 12.5 percent figure, but said it was still studying some of the economic data. ECLAC reported this month that Cuba’s 12.5 percent growth figure was the highest in the region, which saw an average of 5.3?percent growth for 2006. Cuba announced late last year that it was started to turn the corner in its recovery from the financial crisis of the past decade and reported 11.8 percent growth for 2005. Nevertheless, Rodriguez told lawmakers Friday that the country had still not fully recovered from the so-called “special period” of the 1990s, when Cuba imposed austerity measures to survive a crushing economic crisis caused by the Soviet Union’s collapse. Rodriguez also said that much still needs to be done to increase economic efficiency. Worker productivity, for instance, has not kept up with salary increases, he said. Rodriguez said authorities also worry about the island’s dependence on food imports. Deficiencies in urban transportation and high petroleum costs are also worrisome, he added.