Communist Party Political Bureau member Jose Ramon Machado Ventura highlighted the importance of producing quality products in the national effort to substitute imports with domestic goods.

In a tour of workplaces in the province of Guantanamo, the majority belonging to the Ministry of Steel, Mechanical, and Electronics Industry of the Republic of Cuba (SIME), Machado Ventura emphasized the need to prioritize the quality indicator so that national products can compete with foreign ones.

In conversations with administrators and workers at the Mano Guaso Tool Company, Machado Ventura examined the handles for rakes, masons trowels, shovels and other tools made at the factory inaugurated in the 1960s by Ernesto Che Guevara.

Manager Orestes Fournier Garrido informed that these products used to be imported. He said that other lines of production are under study are for pick and axe handles using a hard wood found in the Guantanamo hillsides.

Machado Ventura also visited the Carlos Roloff Valve and Pump Industry, the Muebles Imperio furniture factory and INPUD Oriente home appliance plant, all hard at work to recover production and substitute imports.

At each workplace the Party leader showed interest in the current state of the work force and emphasized the importance of training new workers, especially young people, to increase production.

Machado noted that in the battle to substitute imports, cooperation between the different businesses and ministries is crucial and a key expression of unity.

(RHC)