The “good news” of the GDP growth in 2017 came as a timely relief for the Cuban conscience, gnawed for more than a year by the report that that indicator had dropped 0.9 percent in 2016 – this data, given by the Economy Ministry in December 2016 was late in being corrected by the Cuban Statistical Yearbook, a year and one month later, when it published that the GDP had grown 0.5 percent in 2016. Judging by the forecasts for 2018, the hurdles continue on the race track. When taking into consideration the difficult conditions the country faced last year, this expert assessed that “achieving a positive performance is very good news.”įinancial restrictions, pressures due to the debt, setbacks with the prices in the international markets, an acute drought, Irma’s disaster and the no less disastrous Trump were part of the obstacle race that Cuba faced in 2017. “It is undoubtedly surprising and surpasses by far the 1.1 percent of the first semester of this same year,” opined Juan TrianaCordoví. The 1.6 percent growth of the gross domestic product (GDP) in 2017 was assessed as positive by some Cuban economists. But they are able maintain the trust in a reform that officially got the green light in 2011. The economy’s step forwards, described as “discreet” by Economy Minister Ricardo Cabrisas, still do not bring the benefits expected from the updating of the economic and social model. The program of transformations of the economic model is debating between advances, promises, deceptions and marked delays, a few months from a forecasted change of generations in the Cuban State’s political leadership. The updating of the economic and social model also introduced novelties in 2017 in state-run enterprises and private businesses, but after seven years a feeling of dissatisfaction among the population and the authorities due to the speed of the changes has started being perceived.Īdding to the dissatisfactions originating from the external sector of the Cuban economy, common for years, in 2017 there were more intense signs of other red lights and, compared to this, the reiterated plans which do not lack a dose of daring. State and foreign investments can be speeded up with the renegotiation of the foreign debt. The record number of foreign tourists in Cuba grew by almost half a million visitors, reaching 4.7 million in 2017.Īmong the export sectors, tourism is almost an oasis, when incomes from medical services to other countries and the traditional exports have a tendency to decrease.
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