Cuba approves economic reforms amid US pressure

The Communist Party of Cuba (PCC) on Wednesday approved a package of reforms aimed at opening up more sectors to private investment.

The reform process coincides with increased economic pressure from the US and comes amid regular power outages and other resource shortages on the island .

The country's president and the first secretary of its only legal political party, Miguel Diaz-Canel, first presented the plans late last week.

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The Central Committee of the PCC held an extraordinary plenary session on Wednesday to urgently evaluate the proposals.

The party wrote on social media that the changes were "an expression of the logic of development in the historical period," and insisted that they "in no way constitute a deviation from the socialist project."

It also repeatedy said that Raul Castro, the 95-year-old brother of revolutionary leader Fidel and still widely seen as at least the symbolic power behind the throne, had been consulted on and approved of the proposals. Castro participated via video feed but did not attend in person.

Castro "fully agrees" with the economic reforms proposed by Diaz-Canel and is "convinced that the best ideas always emerge from collective analysis and even from differences of opinion," PCC Political Bureau member Jose Amado Ricardo Guerra told the assembly.