Fox News Online. 10.58 a.m. ET (1558 GMT) February 15, 2000
HAVANA — After six consecutive years of growth, the toughest times are over for communist-ruled Cuba in a decade-long economic crisis provoked by the Soviet collapse and exacerbated by ongoing U.S. sanctions, a key Cuban official said.
Central Bank President Francisco Soberon also reiterated Havana's confidence in its much-criticized socialist economic model, arguing that its efficacy had been proven by Cuba's social achievements and resistance to recent global financial crises.
"We have been reassured by what has happened in the world that we should go on like this. It has been black and white, very clear to us,'' he told Reuters in an interview late Monday.
Despite the economic recovery, including a 6.2 percent gross domestic product (GDP) rise in 1999, Havana is acting not unduly triumphant, nor soon planning to lift its "Special Period,'' the state's euphemism for the recession after the Soviet breakup.
Plenty of economic problems remained to be solved, said Soberon, one of President Fidel Castro's top economic planners.
"We have been feeling now for some years that the worst is behind, but we are realistic and know we have still difficult times ahead,'' Soberon said. "Although at present we are growing in all areas of the economy, there are specific problems that require a lot of attention and
effort.''
Havana perceives its No. 1 problem to be the U.S. economic embargo, or "blockade'' as Cuba calls it, in place since 1962 in a failed attempt to oust Castro from power.
CUBA SAYS U.S. SANCTIONS STRANGLE ECONOMY
Cuba says the sanctions have cost it $60 billion over the years, and continue to strangle the economy by denying it access to its natural trading partner, blocking international credit lines, and pressuring other countries dealing with Cuba.
"To have the United States trying to destroy you creates real problems,'' Soberon said.
Cuba's $11 billion foreign debt was another big obstacle, he added, although there was ongoing contact with the Paris Club of creditors and a recent, $125 million debt restructuring deal with Havana's biggest creditor, Japan.
Within the Cuban economy, it was not easy to handle the pros and cons of relatively new measures such as the partial dollarization of the economy, making government businesses more efficient, and consolidating a package of liberalizing reforms adopted in the mid-1990s, Soberon added.
"We have still enough problems not to be euphoric or have fantasies about our economy. But we feel the situation is under control, we are doing what we have to do,'' he said.
Cuba's economy has grown each year since 1994 after a dramatic 35 percent plunge between 1989 and 1993 due to the shock cutting of trade and aid ties with the former Soviet bloc.
Last year's 6.2 percent GDP rise was one of the highest in Latin America, and the official forecast for 2000 is a rise of 4.0-4.5 percent.
"There is no reason why we should not attain around that figure,'' Soberon said, adding that it could well be higher.
The central bank chief highlighted oil and electricity as likely boom sectors for 2000, with a projected 31 percent rise in oil output to 2.8 million tons likely to help Cuba fulfill 70 percent of electricity needs locally.
TOURISM A KEY SECTOR
Tourism would continue to lead the Cuban economy this year, although perhaps at a slower rate, and production of the Caribbean island's main exports -- sugar, nickel and tobacco -- was all on the rise. Although falling sugar prices left that traditional sector in a "delicate balance,'' that
would be offset in the coffers by rising nickel prices, Soberon said.
"That is one of our main successes, I feel -- that we have diversified the economy,'' he added.
Despite the more optimistic panorama, it was still not time to celebrate, he said.
"We need to feel that the recovery now is absolutely in place, that everything goes OK, before we can say we are out of the 'Special Period.' ... It will have to be a consensus,'' Soberon said, stressing that the lifting of the term was in any case more of a philosophical matter.
Most importantly, however, the world was coming around to Cuba's long-held belief that its "human capital'' was as important -- if not more important -- than its financial wealth, he said.
"If someone wants to lend you $2 billion, they can push a button of a computer, and the $2 billion will be here. If someone wants to have 700,000 professionals, it will take them 40 years,'' he said, referring to the professional sector on an island of 11 million people.
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