2009: A Decisive Year for Recovery in Cuba By Ortelio González Martínez CUBA, January 2nd, 2008. Cuban First Vice President José Ramón Machado Ventura said that 2009 would be a decisive year for the recovery of the country. "It will rely on our own efforts and speed of work, always making rational use of resources. I can see that managers and workers are becoming aware of this situation when facing their assignments, and Ciego de Ávila is a good example," Machado said during a tour of several agricultural companies in this province. Joined by Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, first secretary of the Party in Ciego de Ávila, Machado talked to the workers at the Juventud Heroica Company. He told them that agriculture workers are changing their way of thinking, the labor force was now more stable and attention to workers had improved. This company, one of the area’s worst performing in previous years, is now catching up with other firms. New management methods have been adopted and they have incorporated state-of-the-art equipment. In a conversation with worker Mirtha López Brito, Machado inquired about salaries. She responded saying that with the new payment system, structured according to output, her earnings had doubled. Machado Ventura also visited the province’s first community of petrocasas – houses built with prefab materials developed from oil derivates. The new neighborhood is being built in the municipality of Venezuela, where 13 houses have been completed and another seven are still to be constructed. Machado also showed great interest in the fruit trees development program, which incorporates species such as mango, guava and pineapple trees. At the La Cuba Company, the largest banana producer in the country, Ventura visited the plantations and the canning plant, which produces 18 different canned vegetable products for Cubans and the tourism sector. He praised the fact that the four other agricultural companies in the province have their own seed banks, where they are studying 83 varieties of potatoes and 101 types of sweat potatoes.(Cubaminrex- Granma)
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