[News] Cuban National Assembly to Carry Out Fidel's Last Wish

[Anti-Imperialist News]

http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Cuban-National-Assembly-to-Carry-Out-Fidels-Last-Wish-20161227-0019.html 



  Cuban National Assembly to Carry Out Fidel's Last Wish

December 27, 2016

Cuban President Raul Castro opened the National Assembly in Havana 
Tuesday, where the country’s economy and how to pay lasting tribute to 
revolutionary leader Fidel Castro were on top of the agenda.

The assembly is set to approve legislation that will carry out Fidel’s 
final dying wish that will forbid the use of his name and image from 
streets, statues, parks, government institutions and public places.

Raul had earlier said to Cuban mourners earlier in the month that his 
brother did not want any public recognition because “Fidel was always 
against the cult of personality until his dying days.”

The plenary session started with a tribute to Fidel through an 
audio-visual display showing some of the late leader's most memorable 
moment while he was in the National Assembly.

The Assembly is due to vote on Cuba’s state budget for 2017 and 
presented the economic results from 2016. Cuba’s Economy Minister 
Ricardo Cabrisas said that the country’s economy had a downturn of 0.9 
percent, in part due to economic troubles in oil exporter Venezuela - 
one of the island’s key trading partners.

Despite decades of a strangling U.S. economic blockade that sucked 
US$4.7 billion over the last year and US$753.7 billion over the last six 
decades from the island nation, projections for 2017 appeared to be 
positive.

“For 2017, we expect growth of 2 percent in gross domestic product 
following a contraction of 0.9 percent in 2016,” Cabrisas told Cuban 
media, expecting growth from the country’s tourist and sugar industries.

The country’s economy was previously measured to have grown at an 
average of 2.3 percent each year between 2011 and 2014 and 4 percent in 
2015, only to have a downturn in the second half of 2016 amid problems 
in Venezuela and a drop in global commodities prices.

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