Havana, November 27 (RHC)--Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, reviewed Thursday the progress and challenges of the country facing 2021 in a videoconference with the authorities of the 15 provinces and the special municipality of the Isle of Youth.

At the meeting, he recognized the people's work during a year he described as "very hard" due to the tightening of the economic, commercial, and financial blockade imposed on the island by the United States and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Díaz-Canel assured that 2021 would also be complex and challenging, but with great significance, since the 8th Congress of the Cuban Communist Party will take place, and the commemoration of the 5th anniversary of the physical death of the historical leader of the Revolution, Fidel Castro, and the 95th anniversary of his birth.

The President recalled the priority at the government level of the country's economic and social strategy, and the Ordering Task, related to the elimination of the monetary and exchange duality and the wage and price reform.

The meeting reviewed the fulfillment of the national plan for housing construction, local self-supply, the concerns of the population regarding price hikes,  and the island's epidemiological situation, said the Presidency's website.

Concerning the year's plan for housing construction, currently at 98 percent of completion, Diaz-Canel emphasized the need to advance more quickly to guarantee the program's continuity starting next January.

He also said that the confrontation to the steep price hike of basic staples must be rigorous, expeditiously and professionally, and with severe and exemplary sanctions to those who incur in it.

During the meeting, the President insisted on the urgency for the municipalities to defend their local production systems, to 'depend on what we do with our efforts,' and asserted that cultivating the land is a fundamental task.