Cuba's economic situation in 1965-66. This report constitutes a valuable source of statistical information about Cuba and drew considerable attention from the delegates at the first conference of the Organization of Latin- American Solidarity held in Havana at the end of July and beginning of August.
(The English translation offered below is an official one and has been taken from issue No. 202 of Panorama Econémico Latinoamericano published in Havana.
Mr. President: Distinguished Delegates:
Upon hearing the words of Mr. Carlos Quintana, and after having carefully read the excellent "Economic Study" on the situation of our economies in 1966 that ECLA has offered as a basis for our deliberations, we have come to the conclusion that there exists perhaps no less adequate climate in which to hold this plenary of the Economic Commission for Latin America than in this Yankee-Venezuelan half-breed called the Hotel Macuto-Sheraton.
Everything here invokes serenity and satisfaction, and inspires carefree happiness. How far removed are we, gentlemen, from the real Latin America, the Latin America that surges, with its dramatic outlines, from the official report that has been presented here as the cornerstone for the deliberations of our Commission! From the irrefutable neutrality of the figures and the objective conmentaries on them, emerges an image that is not only a dismal -- but also a hopeless ~-- picture of the economic and social reality of our America.
The report admits that the continent's economy is at a standstill, but, at the same time, it repeats an even more serious warning: that the standstill is not transitory. Studies have confirmed what no one dares discuss: that the stagnation of our economies will persist and will grow worse, as long as the socioeconomic structures that exist today in all Latin America are not destroyed, and, above all, as long as the relations of exploitation that subordinate one region to its imperialist center, the United States, continue.
And, as we all know, stagnation in this case has an even more serious connotation than that which has so worried the economists of the developed countries since Stuart Mill formulated his theory more than one century ago. When an industrialized economy ceases to grow, the result is unemployment and lower living standards; the specter of misery hangs over the heads of a multitude of men. But this misery already exists in Latin America; in fact, it is the normal symptom of
Table No. 1
Cuba: Imports of Fertilizers
(In thousands of tons)
1957 1962 1966 Potassium chloride 21.8 46.6 67.1 Ammonium nitrate 0.2 52.6 139.0 Ammonium sulphate 57.4 207.1 224.3 Simple superphosphate 134.5 114.4
54. Triple superphosphate 31.5 49.0 Phosphoric rock O 37.0 Urea (@) O 37.4 Potassium sulphate 23.6 12.1 27.8 Complete formulas 0 0 30.4
Total 157.6 484.4 726.4
our societies and has been for many decades an intolerable plague. As the Report admits, 70 million inhabitants of rural regions, that is, nearly one-third of Latin America, live in misery and ignorance; they do not consume, it is reported, even half of the minimum required calories and proteins, and with an annual per capita income below 100 dollars, what they have left to spend on clothing, schools, and medicine for the year does not add up to 15 dollars.
However, we know very well -- and proof is offered in the studies of ECLA itself during the 19 years of its existence -- that these 70 million inhabitants of the Latin-American countryside who live in the grip of misery, disease, and ignorance, are not alone, another notorious fact of life is the infamous level of life of the majority of the economically active working class which engenders an increasing number of strikes and protests throughout the continent. Unemployment, which implies total starvation, is becoming chronic and is increasing. The Report itself reveals that the absorption of manpower that takes place every year as a result of the population increase, is each time smaller: it is declining in agriculture and also in industry. So that according to the data we have, open and hidden unemployment rose by 50 percent from 1960 to 1966.
On the other hand, as has been confirmed, inflation exists in nearly all our countries, high prices have reduced even more an already precarious living standard. It is more than well known, gentlemen, that in a large part of Latin America, the urban middle class must support a badly disguised pauperisn.
All this, gentlemen, members of the Commission, as anguishing as it is, would be somewhat less overwhelming if the picture painted by the ECLA report would offer at least some hope for a favorable change. But we know only too well that this is not so and that, indeed, it cannot be any other way. At the core of this drama lies the present economic and social backwardness of Latin America as manifested in its own structure and the oppression derived from imperialist relations. The concept of economic growth is deceiving. The indices of the gross product may grow, as we know, without conferring any benefit at all on the enormous masses of the population, affecting no one save the unemployed who pass from an absolute to a relative misery. The Report emphasizes that the greatest obstacle to growth in this age must be found (and we quote from the text) in the “insufficient expansion of export income, the losses of
Table No. 2 Cuba: Imports of Tractors From 32 Up to to 100 and Total 30 bp. 65 hp. more hp. 1960 4,178 800 3,303 72 1961 5,923 482 5,291 150 1962 1,452 - 1,252 200 1963 2,736 218 2,403 115 1964 6,148 981 5,158 9 1965 4,282 11 3,371 200 1966 4,759 822 3,927 _10 Total 29,478 4,014 24,705 759
(a)The total appears in error. -- W.O.
purchasing power because of the deterioration of price relations, the heavy burden of servicings on the accumulated debt, and the rigidity of the foreign financial agencies..." We do not have to make any great effort to understand that all these factors can be summarized into one: The activities of economic colonialism that has its center in the imperialist United States.
The study undertaken in the Report, based on the last few years, confirms, once again, that all the efforts and sacrifices of Latin America to increase its exports within the framework of its present productive structure, will come to nothing as long as an end is not put to the unequal trade manifested in the constant deterioration of the prices of our primary products. Allow me to call your attention to this part of the Report:
"The losses of purchasing power undergone by Latin-American countries because of the deterioration of foreign trade relations since the middle 1950's were so large that they equaled the total net financing given to the region as a whole."
What does this mean? We can deduce it easily. If Latin America had received for its primary products -- agricultural and mineral -- the remunerative price that the developing countries are asking and which would represent the beginning of an international division of labor in the true sense of the term, there would have been no need of any foreign financing to reach the point we are at now. In other words, Latin America would today be free of foreign debts. Financings -- in the fair conditions that we also ask for -would have been used to stimulate true growth.
I would like to point out that in these trade relations the role of the United States is also evidenced in all clarity. Although in the years 1964, 1965, and 1966, for well-known reasons, the total value of Latin-America's exports exceeded that of imports, the favorable balance with the rest of the countries of the world contrasts with the unfavorable balance of Latin America with the United States. In these three years Latin-American countries, with the exception of Cuba, paid US$700 million more to the imperialist metropolis for their imports than what they received for their exports.
The Report also reveals that when the countries of Latin America obtain favorable balances in their world trade, this fact cannot be interpreted as a positive sign for their economies, because these favorable balances do not originate in a relative increase of the value of their exports, but in a forced limitation of their imports, constrained as these countries are to obtaining foreign exchange to pay their foreign debts and hand over to the U.S. monopolies in foreign exchange the millions of dollars of earnings that the latter extract from the continent's resources and the Latin-American workers' efforts.
This reduction of imports is estimated at an annual average of US$#470 million, and as the Report states, the drain seriously affects the rate of economic development, lowering it considerably.
However, within this framework, the most important fact -- the one that most clearly reveals the dependent situation of Latin America, that expresses most profoundly its tragedy, as recently pointed out by the Prime Minister of my country -is that when the financial resources for
Table No. 3
Cuba: Some Industrial Products Product Unit 1963 1966 Leather shoes Thousands of pairs 11,728.6 12,613.5 Detergents Thousands of M.T. 12.9 14. Beer Millions of liters 89.1 108.8 Refined vegetable oil Thousands of M.T. 38.2 45.8 Canned milk(a) Thousands of M.T. 49.3 61.0 Pasteurized milk Thousands of M.T. 148.1 227.6 Fresh milk distribution Thousands of M.T. 217.4 329.5 Bread and crackers(b) Thousands of M.T. 153.5 195.6 Spaghetti, noodles, etc. Thousands of M.T. 22.3 34.0 Cigars and cigarettes(c) Millions of units 15,346.5 18,454.7 Cotton textiles(d) Millions of sq. meters 60.4 92.0
(a) Includes evaporated and condensed milk. (bd) Bread and salt crackers. (c) Negro and rubio tobacco. (d) Textiles manufactured with Cuban-grown cotton.
the development of Latin America are most in need, then Latin America must send abroad -- that is, chiefly to the United States -~ as a result of the direct exploitation of its resources and its peoples by the U.S. monopolies, no less than US$1,567 million, plus another US$573 million for interests on loans.
None of these factors is new, honorable delegates, although each year brings -- with more crudity -- an accentuation of what we have described. In the same way, neither is Cuba's criterion new in the sense that reforms will not provide the solution.
A little more than five years ago, in the tourist resort of Punta del Este, so far removed from the American drama we are living today, the officialdom of Latin America -- with Cuba as the only discordant voice -- jubilantly welcomed U.S. promises of a supposed "Alliance for Progress." There we heard the announcements of loans, offers to improve trade relations, and even condemnations of the plundering behavior of U.S. companies. With the Cuban Revolution, however, the old specter once again began to make its rounds -- this time in Latin America -—~ and after attempts to destroy the Revolution by military means had ignominiously failed, reformist programs were dragged out to exorcise the old ghost. It was then that the words of Major "Che" Guevara singled out the essence of the plot and predicted its inevitable failure. And we did not have to wait long to see the prophecy come true.
A few months ago, again in Punta del Este, when the regionat meeting of the FAO [Food and Agriculture Organization] was held to discuss the agricultural and livestock situation of Latin America, the same picture of bankruptcy which surges from the pages of the documents we
are discussing now, was already clearly
seen. Two official spokesmen -- Dr. José
A. Mayobre and Dr. Felipe Herrera -- con-
firmed in their speeches that, as we are
saying now, the victims can expect nothing
from an alliance of their victimizers.
Some of the defenders of this Alliance
continued, nevertheless, to proclaim, al-
though by this time not too convincingly,
that a meeting of the heads of state would
revitalize the program. And recently, in
the same Punta del Este where the Alliance
had been born with so much bombast, funeral
services were quietly held. When Prime Min-
ister Fidel Castro called the Alliance "a
resounding failure," he was defining its
real results.
Yesterday morning we heard the very
lucid and explanatory words of Dr. Raul
Prebisch -- full of recommendations for
Latin America.
We cannot, however, share the opti-~
mism which Dr. Prebisch finds as a post-
mortem result of the Punta del Este meet-
ing. If we examine this meeting keeping in
mind that the majority of Latin-American
governments were participants, we could
ask ourselves if it is reasonable to ex-
pect these governments to be willing, as
they have declared, not even to undertake,
but only to facilitate the structural
changes that ECLA has been suggesting for
many years as being indispensable and
which have encountered the tenacious op-
position of these same governments and the
social forces that they represent.
And if we examine the so-called
promises made in Punta del Este on the
part of the U.S. Government, we would eas-
ily find that much clearer and defined
promises had already been given more than
five years ago in the same place as a ba-
sis for the supposed "Alliance for Prog-
ress," without any of them, as of this
date, having been fulfilled.
Table No. 4
Development of Education
1964-1967
Beginning of Term
1964-1965 1965-1966 1966-1967
Schol- Schol- Schol-
Day arship Day arship Day arship Type of Education Primary Education
students students students students students students
frimary schools 1,308,511 Gua 4 1,300,133 21163 1,331,500 430615 imary boarding schools --- 1 1 --- 2 4 --- Total 1,308,511 16,414 1,300,143 1; 1,331,500 43,615 Secondary Education (General) Rural basic secondary schools --- 2,047 --- 2,85 --- 4,150 Urban basic secondary schools 106 » 51 2855 11332 8103) ett 81220 euniversity institutes 12,707 5,910 15,98 1 1 (e) Total Ti, THi9l 129,365 19,626 147,500 srbto
Secondary Education (Tech.and Prof.) Industrial Technology schools 1,729 6,530 937 =. 5,118 390 37,310 Industrial Technology institutes 821 2,693 1,234 3950 1,920 6,180 Administration institutes 12,060 378 5,938 333 6, 300 700 Schools of administration 15,724 -- 5,491 -- 5,500 -- Language schools 7,685 543 7,540 700 9,100 750 Agricultural Technology institutes --- 1,594 --- 2,416 --- 2,680 Fishing school --- 1,758 --- 3,005 --- 4,900 National Art school --- -- --- 555 --- 600 School of tabulating (machine) 1,152 -- 764. -- 800 -- Institute of Financial Studies --- -- 208 --- -- Total 39,171 13,496 22,112 17,423 24,010 23,120 Secondary Education (Teaching) Primary school teacher formation --- 13,737 ~~~. 17,759 --- 22,700 Institute of Pedagogy 10,936 2,216 19,411 9441 23,000 -- Preschool Institute --- 88 --- 147 --- 200 Introductory Course Pop. Teachers --- -- --~ -- --- 2,250 School of Pedagogic Instruction --- -- --- 140 --- -- Total 10,946 16,041 19,411 19,487 23,000 25,150 Special Education Schools for retarded, emotionally disturbed children, etc. 1,283 1,581 2,509 1,578 24820 2 5890 Special trade schools 1 1 158 133 10 0 Total Late 1786 ees 1,711 3,040 5-658
Adult Education Specialization schools 136 474 Z48 981 250 950 Peasant schools --- 9,145 ---_ ob 10,798 --- 8,000 Workers' and Peasants' schools 817 ,998 -- 413,033 -- 560,500 -- Night schools 10,741 -- 9,359 -- 6,500 -- Schools for Workers on Scholarships --- --- 238 --- 200 Total 828, 875 5566 422,740 12,017 567,250 9,150
Other Schools Special Scholarship Center ~<- 145 --- 142 --- 250 Institute of Education Continuation 9 62 9.6 schools 5,70 8 1,846 00 -- Total $2608 236 1,846 eon 5,600 250
Higher Education University of Havana 10,385 5,074 12,877 7,813 --- 11,000 pniversity of “es Villas 21877 15183 5°8n8 1,270 --- 400 niversity of iente 3,24 1,05 851 1,710 --- Total 16,50 7309 18,576 167553 22,700 15,000
TOTAL
fa }tnoludes 3,763 students.
2,330,360° 82,077
1,916 ,850°103,386 2,129,000 140,890
b)Does not include matriculation for the rural calendar year that had already begun the
tern. (c)Includes 1,823 sleep-in students spread among the Primary Schools (467), Secondary Schools
(582), and the University of Havana (774). (d)Includes 3,763 students, plus another 769 who are sleep-in students of the School of Ath-
In his speech Mr. Johnson does not give a single guarantee for future U.S. and Latin-American relations.
No answer has as yet been given to Latin America's request for increasing its exports to the U.S. -- the market in which Latin-American participation is ever smaller; the request for special treatment in the U.S. market is considered -- and rightly so -- as a throwback to neocolonialism; the repeated complaints about prices of basic products and the unequal terms of trade received the same arrogant negative reply as it had on other occasions; the request for more frequent and increased financing remains to be decided by the U.S. Congress, and as an alternative, incentives to private investments are being presented, the same investments which, as we have seen, extract from Latin America US$1,567 million yearly. Those who attended the Punta del Este meeting with some hope of receiving concessions must now feel, in view of Mr. Johnson's answers, like “Alice in Wonderland" who when she asked for some of the honey that was flowing about so abundantly, received the simple reply: "In this country, honey yesterday and honey tomorrow; but never honey today."
No. The honey.of the metropolis will never materialize. It is impossible to expect it from those who raze the schools and hospitals of Vietnam, after having tried out their armies in Mexico, Nicaragua, Haiti, Cuba and the Dominican Republic throughout a century. The somber and lacerating description presented before us in the ECLA report explains why Latin America has begun to move. Those who hope to find in Cuba the root of this guerrilla epidemic that is convulsing hundreds of Latin Americans and making them take the road of Bolivar, P&ez, San Martin, and Sucre, refuse to look at the heart of the matter. Cuba is proud that its example is inspiring those who are looking for genuine radical solutions as understood by both Marti and Karl Marx, that is, those who go to the root of our problems. But the origin of these struggles must be sought not in the example of Cuba, but in the hard and unshakeable reality found in the figures and the problems we are examining today.
There is, gentlemen, a symbolic coincidence that serves to explain what is happening in Latin America today. Curious as to the meaning of the word Macuto which is perhaps Venezuela's only real
contribution to this hotel where we are
meeting, I looked up the word in the dic-
tionary of the Spanish Academy. It said:
macuto: woven basket usually used by the
poor in Venezuela to beg for alms. Per-
haps there is no greater irony than to
give this name, which evokes poverty, to
a resort center for rich tourists. How-
ever, further on, the Spanish Academy dic-
tionary gives another meaning for the word
macuto: soldier's pack. And here is the
place where we find the symbol. The poor
of America are no longer resigning then-
selves to beg for alms. They have begun
to change one macuto for another: to lay
down the macuto of the beggar and take up
the macuto of the people's soldier. When
Fidel Castro predicted that one day the
Andes would become the Sierra Maestra of
an entire continent, and when today Ernesto
Guevara continues in his latest message
his words of Punta del Este as he lucidly
and passionately explained how and why the
Andes are becoming another Sierra, they
base themselves precisely on the fact that
the realities shown to us by the ECLA re-
port engender this rebellion and fully
justify it.
Mr. President and Distinguished
Members of the Commission:
Permit me to explain that the re-
cent processes of the Cuban economy offer
a contrast with the rest of Latin America.
I am not going to base my affirmation on
growth indices which are more or less
spectacular, but which, as I have often
said, are deceiving. I would like in the
first place only to refer to certain data
which will explain how Cuba's economic
growth has been translated into increased
material and cultural standards for our
people, subjected only eight years ago to
the same tribulations now plaguing the
rest of Latin America, an economy which
today advances in spite of all obstacles,
threats and attacks perpetrated by its
former despoilers.
In our country there is no involun-
tary unemployment, nor does anyone go to
sleep without eating because he has no
money. More than 140,000 families in the
cities no longer pay rent for their dwell-
ings since the end of 1965 and rent will
be completely abolished in 1970. Medical
services have been extended to the most
remote parts of our island; before the
Revolution thousands of persons, mostly
children, died because they could not be
transported to a far-off and costly medi-
cal center. The ECLA report of 1964 gives
letics which should be considered in the total of scholarship students. SOURCE: 1964-65 and 1965-66: Report to the XXI International Conference on Public Instruction called by the OIE and the UNESCO in Geneva, Switzerland. (Ministry of Education. ) 1966-67: Plan of Activities approved for 1967.
us an idea of the growth in these two years and permits us to compare the present-day situation with that before the Revolution.
The number of hospitals in the past two years has increased from 144 to 162, with the largest rise found in the rural hospitals which increased from 34 to 46. It would be well to remember that before 1959 there was not a single rural hospital in Cuba...The number of hospital beds in the past two years has risen by nearly 4,000, making a total of 42,337 of which 1,288 are in rural areas. The increase of hospital beds after the Revolution has been more than 20,000, nearly doubling the 22,080 beds that existed before 1959. Moreover, Cuba has 202 polyclinics, open to anyone for free medical consultation and treatment. There are an~ other 3,600 hospital beds in several other medical centers, making a grand total of 45,900 beds.
It is worthwhile mentioning the importance of the participation in public health tasks of our mass organizations, not only the trade unions, but also the Cuban Women's Federation and in particular the neighborhood Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, which include a large majority of our citizens. Through these organizations, Cuba has established a system of mass vaccination of children. Antipolio vaccine, which in 1964 was administered to 2,450,000 children under 14 years of age was in 1966 administered to 1,407,000 children under six years of age and has led to the total eradication of poliomyelitis in Cuba. In the same way, Cuba vaccinates half a million children annually against different diseases (see Table No. 7). All this explains why the infant mortality rate in Cuba is decreas-
ing. The work of the public health orga-
nizations and popular participation in
educational activities among the cultural-
ly most backward population groups has
also contributed to the decrease of gen~
eral mortality rates.
The advances achieved in the field
of child health are closely connected with
the spread of the Circulos Infantiles
nursery schools) where preschool age
children are cared for while their mothers
work.
In 1964 Cuba had 157 nursery schools
of this type, of which 143 were boarding
schools, with a total of 12,059 children
and a daily average attendance of 8,727.
In 1965 the number of nursery schools rose
to 166, with 16 boarding schools, caring
for 14,934 children and with a daily aver-
age attendance of 10,600. In 1966 there
were 194 nursery schools with 22,533 chil-
dren and a daily average attendance of
15,500.
Moreover, the nursery schools, which
previously charged a fee based on family
income, are now absolutely free for working
mothers. As thousands of women, answering
the call of the Revolution, participate
more and more in agricultural activities,
the need for nursery schools has become
one of the Revolution's principal concerns
today. In 1967 there will be 491 such
schools caring for 65,000 children, and
the plan for 1968 is to increase their
number to 653 with a capacity for 82,000
preschool age children.
This social activity of the Revolu-
tion has already begun to be complemented
by a new educational institution designed
to solve the most difficult problem of
children in rural areas today. We refer
Table No. 5 Distribution of Free Services in Terms of Persons Per Year
Social Services Education Children under 12 years of age Persons over 12 years of age In the mountainous zones Full-time day students Public health and Social assistance Children under 6 years of age (nursery schools) Adults (in asylums or shelters) Patients (hospitalized) Employees Athletics Fishing fleets Maritime crews (freight) Harvests and Agricultural mobilizations Total Social Services
Estimated Planned
1965 1966 1967 1968
22,200 24,000 39,100 50,300
98, 300 105,020 118,410 164,980
10,800 14,500 16, 300 17,500
25,000 30,000 47,000 80,000
15,100 15,900 29,900 57,400
90 90 290 80
47,100 49,500 50,200 52,000
30,600 40,090 42,440 48,730
900 2,150 7,710 12,630
4,100 4,630 4,900 4,910
2,200 3,200 4,010 4,120
228,010. 202,540 329,730 397,000
484,400 491 ,620 689 ,990 890 , 370
to the mountain boarding schools. Here the primary school children who live in the countryside -- beginning with those in the mountain zones -- will be state scholarship students and sleep in the schools from Monday to Friday and will receive absolutely free food, clothing and school materials. Today Cuba has 12 such schools and another eight are in construction. The most interesting of these schools without a doubt is the one that is operating with 300 pupils in the small valley of San Andrés, in the province of Pinar del Rio, one of the most backward places in the country, chosen to demonstrate how much the small independent peasants and their families can be expected to contribute to society when they are liberated of the burden of caring for their small children.
The mountain boarding schools are, of course, only one part of the national scholarship program. In one of the tables accompanying the Report which will be distributed among the delegates, we can see in detail Cuba's general educational development, and in particular the growth of its scholarship program. Let me, nevertheless, refer briefly to this subject.
In 1966 there were 103,386 scholarship students who received everything they needed from the State. There are 21,645 such students in primary schools; 19,626 in secondary schools; 17,423 in intermediate technical and professional schools (not counting the students in the special plan to train agricultural and livestock technicians, which we shall mention later). In the schools of different levels, half of the students (that is, 19,487) are on scholarships. We should mention that a considerable part of these students are peasant girls who before the Revolution were semiliterate, whom the State has educated through its scholarship program up to an intermediate school level and in some cases up to superior levels. There were 1,711 scholarship students in the several specialized educational institutions (for retarded, emotionally disturbed children, etc.).
There are 12,800 adult scholarship students (nonuniversity) of whom 10,800 were in 1966 the peasant girls who will be the future teachers and technicians of Cuba. Finally, last year Cuba had 10,973 university scholarship students, the majority of whom -- almost 8,000 -- are in the University of Havana.
An important aspect of the scholarship program is that the number of students will increase by 40,000 this year, that is, by 40 percent. The most significant increases will take place on the primary school level (22,000 new scholarships); in the intermediate professional and technical schools (6,000 new scholarships); in teacher's colleges (another 6,000); and in the universities (5,000 new scholarships).
The growth of the scholarship program is a result of the rapid increase of the entire educational system. The enclosed table will show us how, comparing the figures given in the ECLA study for 1964, the number of persons studying increased to 2,129,000 in 1966, that is, 300,000 more than four years ago and several times more than in 1958. Primary school children numbered 1,370,000 last year. It should be pointed out that the half a million adults who were studying on primary school levels according to ECLA statistics in 1962 now appear as studying on secondary school levels, which once again shows the Revolution's educational efforts and the enthusiastic response of the workers and peasants who are its protagonists.
A single figure will show what role popular education plays in Revolutionary Cuba: The budget for public education expenditures in 1966 rose to 303 million pesos [1 peso = US$1].
To finalize this report on the Revolution's social achievements, I would like to mention another significant fact. The detractors of the Cuban Revolution have attempted to misrepresent its effects on the living standards of the population by pointing to the existence of rationing in Cuba. Of course, rationing, as is known, indicates one thing: that consumption levels in Cuba are not determined by social or wealth differences, but that the establishment of equality in the distribution of the essential elements of life ensures that every Cuban has the right to receive an equal share of the products or articles available to society. On the other hand, what the detractors of the Revolution would never publish is a table of rationed consumption in our country, side by side, with the estimated consumption of workers and peasants in the rest of Latin America. This comparison would permit the peoples of America to know the great progress that the Revolution has made in Cuba.
We should mention in this respect what we call social consumption, or nutrition and other services that are supplied to the population free of charge. Low-cost meals are provided by the popular cafeterias to workers in agriculture, state farms, industry, construction, and to urban state employees, etc. Meals are also provided free of charge for some thousands of construction workers who must work far from their homes. The others pay a modest price of no more than fifty cents or oneseventh of the minimum daily wage of an agricultural worker.
In 1966 free social services were used by 491,000 persons including scholarship students, hospitalized patients and
the aged, as well as the volunteers in the popular mobilizations to cut cane and in other agricultural and industrial activities who numbered 202,000 persons per year. As a result of the increase of scholarship students, these services will be used by some 890,000 persons annually in 1968.
Workers' cafeterias this year catered to 297,000 persons and in 1968 will be extended to provide meals for up to 425,000 people daily.
Mr. President and Distinguished Delegates, these are some of the significant ways by which Cuban society is receiving the results of economic progress.
On this same point, we can report on the progress of the strategy initiated after rectifying those initial errors which our delegation spoke of during the tenth period of sessions of this commission.
However, it is worthwhile here to make some clarifications.
We often find that when commentators from other countries refer to the concept elaborated by Revolutionary Cuba of utilizing our natural possibilities (and even the old productive structure) to make agriculture the instrument of take-off towards full economic development, they seem to attribute to us the -938-
aim of prolonging this agricultural stage of development and postponing industrialization.
We must make clear that the Cuban concept is very different. It is, on the contrary, a matter of utilizing all the resources of science and technology to achieve, in a short period of time, the full utilization of agricultural potential: the fulfillment of all the planting programs, the termination of basic installations and the chief irrigation projects, large-scale mechanization, and, with it, the elimination of the "considerable deficits in farm manpower," the massive and systematic use of fertilizers and -the decisive point for all of these aspects -- the employment in agriculture of 70,000 middle-level technicians, which will mean a radical change compared with the present lack of technicians.
We can be sure that this entire process will be completed between 1973 and 1975. From then on, agricultural produc-— tion will increase intensively, that is, in a process that will no longer require the concentration of so many external efforts and which will be the consequence of the very internal conditions that we will have created in these years of spadework.
At the same time the rapid growth of agriculture presupposes the growth, in certain cases accelerated, of the farm equipment and food processing industries.
Table No. 6 Number of Hospitals and Beds
Hospitals Hospitals General 99 al 4 Total 16
Specialized hospitals 14 Mutualist clinics Total hospitals and clinics set
Industrial hospitals(1) 19 Polyclinics(2) 202 Rural Medical Posts 69 1965 1966*
Index Index Beds (3) Hospitals Beds (3)
18,911 O° 102 19 +307 6°8 1,21 . 1, OQ. 20,123 : 148 21,550° 2.8
10,667 4 14 9,415 2 ietee 9.4 11 4 42,1620 549 239 42,337 5
951 - 23 955 -
128 - 249 284 -
-- - 69 -- -
(1)Included in urban general hospitals. Refers to hospitals that give preferential attention to industrial workers (in Moa, Matahambre, Nicaro, etc.). But all of Cuba's hospitals attend workers from all sectors. 62}Beds included in the urban general hospitals. 3)Index per 1,000 inhabitants. In each case we refer to the population that has used the service in question. *Provisional data. SOURCE: Budget Department, Ministry of Public Health, Cuba. Department of Statistics, Mutualist Clinics Enterprise Population Study No. 5, Central Planning Board. (a)An error appears to have crept in the figures published by PEL -- W.O.
This determines, as we will have occasion to express succinctly, investments in basic as well as consumer goods industries, which are already being made.
But what we are interested in enphasizing now is that the decisive inportance that we assign to the agricultural phase, as the initiator and motive force of development, as well as in its permanent function within the definitive structure of the Cuban economy in the coming period, does not signify an indefinite postponement of basic industrialization.
As Prime Minister Fidel Castro an-~ nounced in a speech on February 20, preliminary work has already begun on what will be the center of the country's industrial development from 1970 on: the integral utilization of the laterites to be found at the extreme northeastern end of the island, with a substantial increase in the production of nickel and cobalt. This is the basis for Cuba's future steel industry and its specialty in steel-nickel and other alloys, as well as in the production of aluminum, chrome, ammonium sulphate, etc.
It will thus be seen that industrialization, far from being abandoned, is advancing in step with the agricultural process. The external resources stemming from the latter will allow us, in the near future, with the aid of external financing, to place industry in the center of our development plans.
Having made this explanation, we think it may be of interest for the Commission if we describe, in the briefest way possible, how the Cuban economy has been unfolding in the course of the past two years.
Starting with sugar production, the pivot of our development program, it is already known that as was predicted by Cuban delegate Garcia Valls in the eleventh period of sessions, the country's 1965 sugar production was more than six million tons. However, the 1966 harvest was considerably less because during 1965 the country suffered the worst drought of the century and one of the worst in all its history.
Thus this hard lesson strengthened our conviction that modern agriculture cannot be left at the mercy of nature; it served to give more impetus to the fertilization and irrigation programs of which we will speak later. Nevertheless, the consolidation of our agriculture is revealed by the fact that the recovery of the sugar sector has been immediate. The harvest which is now drawing to a close will once again top six million tons, and that of 1968 will, without any doubt, be the largest in Cuban history. The present harvest has also served to show the inprovement in both the agricultural and industrial processes of sugar production. The rate of development is considerably greater in comparison with any other harvest of the revolutionary period.
Progress towards the production of ten million tons is being assured by sizeable investments in industry and agriculture. The industrial modernization plan presupposes an investment of US$220 million up to 1970. Of these investments, US$25.5 million were made up to 1966, another 30 million will be made this year, and 60.4 million in 1968. Another US$4.5 million have been invested to improve cane and sugar rail transportation, and the 1967 plan includes an additional investment of 24.5 million. Another 34.6 million will be invested in 1968.
Twelve million dollars have already been invested in the installations for the shipping of sugar in bulk, another 8.3 will be invested in 1967, with the total investment coming to 75 million.
The investments required to achieve a production of 7,200 million arrobas (one arroba = 25 pounds) of cane (about 85 million metric tons) -- and their harvest -in 1970 are of a similar scope. This report would be too long if I were to detail the progress of the mechanization of the sugarcane harvest, and I refer those delegates who may be interested in this subject to our report to the recent FAO regional meeting in Punta del Este, which we have made available to all the delegations. (PEL note: For full text of this report see PEL No. 186.)
The second strategic branch of our agriculture is cattle raising.
During 1965 and 1966 Cuban cattle raising has justified the hopes formulated by our delegation at this Commission's 1965 meeting. Milk collection increased considerably, amounting to 234 million liters (that is, kilograms) in 1965 and 329.5 million in 1966, not counting the domestic consumption in the rural zones. Since we do not wish to take advantage of the figures, we must make clear that a part of the increase is not due to a pro-~ duction rise, but to improvement in collection thanks to a greater number of refrigerated trucks and other means of transportation. But the production increase is very great and is due to the fact that scientific methods of handling cattle are beginning to yield results. The figure for the first two months of 1967 is very much higher than that for the same period of 1966.
This achievement will come as no surprise when we explain that by mid-1966, 258,000 cows and 40,000 heifers were already included in the plan of rational
rotating pasturage. The installations already underway will shortly be able to house up to a million animals. At the same time, we can report that the artificial insemination program announced in previous Cuban reports has already arrived at the stage of mass application. There are already more than 2,000 trained inseminators and a good number of installations, while by the end of 1966 more than 1.2 million cows were included in the plan, with a 75 percent géstation index that is steadily increasing.
These facts also explain the increased meat supplies. Almost one million head of beef cattle were slaughtered in 1966, for a total tonnage of 315,000 metric tons, 60 percent higher than the 1962 figure and also higher than before the revolution,
The technical and economic details of this cattle plan likewise appear in the Report to the FAO which we have mentioned.
Regarding poultry production, we can say that the optimism expressed here in the previous meeting has been confirmed by the facts. The production of eggs collected on the state farms alone was 920,267,400 in 1965, while the 1966 figure was 1,019 million, for a per capita of 153.
Agricultural production other than cane increased considerably in 1966 compared with the preceding years. From 1965 to 1966 growth was 13 percent, and the production level of the first years of the revolution, the highest in the country's history is now being recovered. Of course, this is just the beginning of a steady and rapid growth as the result of all that has been done in revolutionary agriculture in these years.
The first months of 1967 allow us to expect that, as foreseen, this year's growth will.be greater than in 1966.
A separate table shows a comparison of the main agricultural products marketed during both years. It will be seen that tobacco production rose (in thousands of tons) from 43 to 51, coffee from 23.9 to 33.4, rice from 49.9 to 68.4, root vegetables from 281.2 to 431.1. A notable advance, thanks to an intensive work program, was accomplished in citrus fuits, which rose from 116,000 to 159,000 tons. In 1962 the figure was only 89,000.
These agricultural advances are inportant because they are not due mainly to accidental climatic factors or cyclical evolution, so frequent in the field. They are, we repeat, the first signs of what Cuba's agricultural production will be in the immediate future, when the measures applied by the revolutionary government to achieve the fullest transformation of our agriculture yield their final results.
These factors may be summed up as follows: .
(a) Use of more advanced agricultural techniques.
(b) Fertilization on a large scale.
(c) Increase in irrigation.
(a) Mechanization.
(e) Centering the attention of all the people on the countryside.
In order not to repeat here concepts and data appearing in our FAO report, we would like to take only a few indices of these factors, as a whole, since the ECLA 1963 report allows us to establish some comparisons.
Let us look at the use of fertilizers. The prerevolutionary year with the highest amount of fertilization was 1957. According to the ECLA report, less than 160,000 tons of mineral fertilizer were applied that year. In 1962 the figure rose to 484,000 tons, while in 1966 total inports came to 726,741 tons, with especially significant jumps, for example, in anmonium nitrate, which rose from 52,000 tons in 1962 (the highest yearly total) to 139,000 tons in 1966.
But the 1966 figures are being surpassed, and the 1967 plan contemplates the use of 1,150,000 tons of fertilizer. The breakdown of the nutrient content will be: NH3z, 208,000 MT; P5205, 82,800 MT; and K0, 106,700.
Another index, the importance of which will be noticed by the delegates, is that of the import of tractors in the past two years (see Table No. 2).
In the four years before the revolution, fewer than 600 caterpillar tractors and 1,250 with tires were imported by the Cuban economy.
When speaking of mechanization and the application of technology in agriculture, it will be no secret to the delegates present here that the most important thing is to raise the technical level of the men and women in charge of putting into practice the radical change in agriculture to which we aspire.
In this line the most significant aspect is the task being carried out by the Plan for Technological Education in Soil, Fertilizer and Cattle, which by 1975 will have trained no less than 100,000 middle-level technicians, of which more than 15,000 preuniversity level techni-
Table No. 7 Cuba: Prophylactic Vaccinations in 1965
Date: December 1966
Population Groups Complete, Simple or or Population Incomplete No. of Persons Combination Vaccinated or Re- or Booster Vaccinated or Vaccination Against Vaccines vaccinated by age Shots Revaccinated
Simple Under 1 year CD 455 SMALLPOX Simple 1-14 years of age CD and B 8,170 Simple 15 and over CD and B 72,818
Simple Under 45 days old cD 175,488 TUBERCULOSIS Simple Over 45 days old CD and B 192°879
Duplex 6-9 years old CD and B 213,548 DIPHTHERIA Triplex Under 1 year cD 51,223 Triplex 1-5 years CD and B 243,147
Triplex Under 1 year cD 51,223 WHOOPING COUGH Triplex 1-5 years CD and B 233,147
Combination 6-9 years CD and B 213,548 Simple aa 10-14 years CD and B 285,978 TETANUS Simple (TT Over 15 years CD and B 1,267 ,988 Triplex Under 1 year cD 51,223 Triplex 1-5 years CD and B 233,147
TYPHOID and PARA- Simple Under 14 years CD and B 122,875 TYPHOID FEVERS Simple Over 15 years CD and B 335,647
CD B Complete dose. Booster shot.
cians will be graduated in 1970, plus an~ other 5,000 elementary level artificial insemination technicians. At the end of 1966 there were already 16,358 students enrolled in the different schools and institutes that make up the Plan. This year's enrollment will come to 46,000 and that of 1968, to 63,000. The most important thing is that those students who will be graduated as preuniversity level technicians, and will later continue higher studies, are from the ranks of the agricultural and industrial workers, many of whom were illiterate at the beginning of the Revolution. The majority of them had not gone beyond the first three grades of primary school.
Irrigation works, at a cost of more than 80 million pesos, have already improved 147,000 hectares, and when they are completed, will benefit another 138,ooo.
The reservoirs of the eastern region will make available 570 million cubic meters of water. .
In fishing, the purchase of 41 boats and the construction of four more for fishing in far-distant seas, and the fleet of medium size craft that operates in the Gulf of Mexico, with an investment
of more than 53 million pesos, have de-
termined a jump in the total annual catch
from 28,000 tons in 1959 to more than
44,000 in 1966.
However, as we have said, the agri-
cultural and livestock production increases
that have been achieved in the past two
years are just a beginning. What character-
izes the two-year period on which we are
reporting here to ECLA is the fundamental
concentration of the financial, material,
and human resources in agriculture as the
take-off for the development that embodies
our economic goals.
A detailed picture of these activ-
ities appears in the report to the FAO.
If we consider the projection of
the sugar industry to 10 million tons and
the work to multiply cattle production,
going from nonirrigated and unfertilized
natural pasture to the formation of more
than four million hectares of artificial
pasture to be fertilized in 1970 with 300
kilograms per hectare and with a good part
of them irrigated; if it is remembered
that the citrus production figure we men-
tioned is only the result of improved care
of the groves already existing before the
revolution (less than 25,000 hectares);
that the 10,300 hectares planted between
1961 and 1966 will shortly be producing, and that the planting program now underway, with the participation of thousands of young students is for more than 80,000 hectares; if we note that the revolution has already planted more than 300 million timber yielding trees and that more than 1,000 million will be planted by 1970; if we consider that from 1967 to 1970 the state sector will plant 4,800 caballerias (one caballeria = 13.4 hectares) of new coffee trees and the private sector 1,000, with the aim of arriving at an annual production of 100,000 tons, the extent of the upsurge in our agriculture will be understood.
Mr. President and Distinguished Delegates, we have given preference in our report to farm and animal production, because it is the starting point of our economy. We insert a table that shows the changes in some branches of industrial production between 1963 and 1966. It will be seen that the industrial sector is not static, and important increase will be observed especially in the food processing industry.
However, that sector is not the only that is being improved. It will be seen also that nickel production has considerably increased, including, very significantly, that which comes from the Moa plant, which the technicians of our country have been able to operate at full capacity, in spite of the prediction and hopes of its former exploiters.
The production of electric energy, which increased 13 percent during the twoyear period in question, indicates that the program for increased energy capacity to which Comrade Garcia Valls referred two years ago, is being put into practice. In effect, two 50,000 Kw. units have begun to operate in the eastern network and another two units in the western, making another 100,000 Kw. The latter circuit will receive the addition of a third unit and before the year is out, a fourth will also be added to complete its initial capacity of 200,000 Kw. Work continues on three other power stations, which will add another 180,000 Kw. to generating capacity in 1969 and the first quarter of 1970. A fourth plant will begin in 1967, with a capacity of 66,000 Kw. Investments will rise to more than 75 million pesos.
The importance given to the food industry and its programmed growth determined the creation of the Ministry that now runs it.
In this sphere of industry also, although we can feel satisfied with the progress that has been made, the most inportant aspect is what is being done with an eye to the future.
In the sphere of industrialization, work is already in progress on the first of the meat combines which will have a daily slaughtering capacity of 1,000 head of cattle. Although in recent years the daily milk pasteurization capacity has risen by half a million kilograms and that of milk cooling by a quarter of a million, five new pasteurization plants are planned for the near future with capacities of 100,000, 50,000 and 30,000 kilos a day.
In accord with the development of citrus plantations, two combines for processing will be built, one in the westernmost part of the island, in Guane, which was previously completely abandoned, and the other on the Isle of Pines -- today the Isle of Youth -- where thousands of young people are showing their revolutionary enthusiasm and responsibility and where the old National Penitentiary will be transformed into an agricultural technological institute.
Work has already been started to enlarge flour-milling capacity and to build a new mill in the central part of the country. In addition, the first of four modern noodle and spaghetti factories is already being built in Havana. The four will have a total production capacity of 100,000 MT.
As has been reported before, industries serving agriculture are being organized around the country's basic economic activity. Because of its importance and because of the need to replace imports that represent a considerable weight in our trade balance, priority has been given to the fertilizer industry. A contract has already been signed with the Soviet Union for a combine which will produce 135,000 tons of nitrate, 35,000 of urea and 200,000 of complete fertilizers, in addition to its own phosphate needs. Negotiations are also being completed for a combine that will produce 285,000 MT of ammonium nitrate and 180,000 of urea. Three combines of similar capacities will be purchased in the near future. Total investment will be more than 300 million pesos.
The cement needs arising from industrial construction, road necessities and the housing plan which will increase annual production to 100,000 dwelling units in 1970, have required a rapid enlargement of installed capacity. A new plant is being built with a total investment of US#28 million and which will produce 600,000 MT a year beginning in 1969.
In 1965 the Siguaney plant was begun and will go into operation in 1969 with a production capacity of 650,000 metric tons. This represents an investment of forty million pesos. The Santiago plant is being enlarged to increase its capacity to 216,000 MT with an investment of 12.5 million. Thus, by 1970 cement production will
come to more than 2,200,000 MT, that is, two and a half times as much as in 1959.
In metallurgy investments are being made to raise capacity to 350,000 MT of common steel. The first phase will be completed in 1968, when production will be 230,000 MT.
Although Cuba's dependence on the export of farm—-based primary products for the greater part of its foreign trade makes it without doubt vulnerable to all the elements of market instability and price deterioration that the ECLA pinpoints as one of the origins of Latin America's stagnation, the long-range agreements which, as was reported by the Cuban delegation in 1965, were signed with the socialist countries, and especially the one signed by the Prime Minister with the Soviet leaders, have given our sugar exports not only the necessary market security, but also the guarantee of a remunerative and stable price. Contracts signed with Spain, the United Arab Republic, and Syria had a similar effect, although the volume and prices were lower.
In this way, the sharp drop in sugar prices during the two-year period under study -- which had repercussions in sensitive sectors of the Cuban economy -affected our dollar supply, while leaving mainly unaffected our import capacity from the socialist and capitalist trade areas, which supply over 80 percent of our total imports.
The decrease in the 1966 sugarcane harvest had a negative influence on our payment capacity with the Soviet Union, although these effects were mitigated by commercial credits granted to Cuba by the er to balance the current exchange defcit.
This proves how right the developing countries are, particularly those of Latin America, to demand from capitalist industrial metropolitan centers remunerative and stable prices for basic products and the elimination of competition with imports from the developing areas.
And the enumeration of Cuba's investment process shows that, as we maintain, the end of Latin America's trade inequality with the industrial centers that constitute its markets would become a decisive source for the financing of its development.
In the spheres of international trade and financing, it seems important to inform this meeting that efforts to isolate Cuba were intensified during the past two years, although unsuccessfully.
The insistence of the U.S. State Department with the British Foreign Office on this point is well known, as well as the no less notorious attempts in the same direction in regard to Spain, France and other countries.
We may take as a favorable symptom in international life the fact that the governments against which such pressure has been exerted have upheld the principle of independent international economic relations. Thus, during 1966 important negotiations with the French firm "Richard et Fréres" for a US$36 million credit were brought to a successful close.
The credit is for the purchase of 700 bulldozers and other equipment for agricultural and road work. The first equipment began to arrive in Cuba at the end of last year. The contract with the British firm Leyland for the supply of buses has already been completed. Negotiations with British firms for the abovementioned fertilizer plant are progressing satisfactorily.
Mr. President and Distinguished Delegates, these are the experiences that Cuba can offer the commission in its twelfth period of sessions.
As we anticipated, they contrast with the present situation and future prospects of Latin America as a whole, as deduced from the ECLA report on the continental economy in 1966.
We are not unaware of the fact that some countries of the region can present figures on the growth rate of their gross product that place them above the whole and which may be misleading as to their future possibilities. But all the causes that are pointed out to explain stagnation act on the deepest level, even in those economies that apparently are progressing, although the enjoyment of the benefits resulting from such growth go mainly to foreign investors and to very conspicuous minorties.
A favorable conjuncture in the price of a specific item can change appearances, but only fleetingly. As long as what are euphemistically called "institutional obstacles to development" prevail, which are none other than the structural deformations that keep the masses of Latin-American workers and peasants in misery and increasingly impoverish the national economies, the continental situation will worsen.
This is why Cuba, without arrogance but with certainty based on its own experience, repeats that the only definitive way out for Latin America is revolutionary change.
Throughout this report we have expressed what we expect of science and technology. On examining the problem, we stated what we have achieved with planning and what it promises us. We enumerated the
investments with which we intend to guarantee the correct course of development. We mentioned what foreign trade based on the elimination of exchange inequality means to us. But all of that would not be enough to explain how our small country has been able to resist the economic siege with which the power that considers itself master of this region, which it considers its continental backyard, has tried to complement its armed aggressions in order to wipe out the Cuban example from America.
All of these important technical, scientific and economic factors would not have been sufficient if the most important factors had been lacking. These factors are: the profound revolutionary process, the backing of the people, growing in conscious intensity every day.
Our confidence in the future derives, more than from the economic information we have just offered and which backs up our optimism, from the spectacle which may now be seen in Cuba of tens of thousands of men and women of all ages who have gone out from Havana and other urban centers to devote themselves to agricultural work. With their enthusiasm and their adherence, our people are making possible many plans which otherwise would have been unattainable.
We are well aware that this cannot be a permanent solution to our productive tasks, but we do aspire to the permanence of the enthusiasm and conviction expressed in that attitude by the revolutionary people. They are the seeds of the society of