President Raul Castro has acknowledged that past errors still pose a threat to the health of the Cuban revolution, but pledged economic reforms to make socialism "truly irrevocable", dpa reported.
Castro told the 610-member parliament that the older generation of leaders was facing its last chance to preserve the ideals of their regime, which took control of the island in 1959 after overthrowing the Batista dictatorship.
"Either we rectify our errors, or time will run out on us at the edge of the precipice and we will sink, taking down with us the efforts of entire generations," the president said Saturday at the end of a five-day policy debate.
He criticized "errors and violations" and the failure to reform, noting that his brother, former president Fidel Castro, had pointed out several problems including bloated public payrolls and misuse of state resources.
"Fidel wisely showed us the way but the rest of us have been unable to consolidate and guarantee the advance of those objectives," he said.
Castro, who succeeded his brother as president in February 2008, said the April 16-19 party congress would be the last chance for the historic leaders of the revolution to use their "moral authority" to "pave the way" to the future.
"We don't consider ourselves more intelligent or capable than others, but we are convinced that we have the elemental duty to correct the errors that we have committed in these five decades of building socialism in Cuba, and for that purpose we will devote all the energy that we have left," Castro said.
The president, 79, is five years younger than Fidel.
He said the national economy would grow by 3.1 per cent in 2011, after growth of 2.1 per cent this year. He also announced the easing of capital restrictions for foreign exports to the island
In October, Castro eliminated 500,000 public sector jobs and authorized small private enterprises to operate in 178 different professions.
But he vowed that the country would not return to the "capitalist and neocolonial past," and vowed that "planning rather than the free market will be the distinctive feature of the economy," to prevent the concentration of wealth.
Castro urged militant communists to accept the new form of limited private enterprise without "stigma or prejudice." He said that Marx and Lenin proposed state control over the "fundamental" means of production, while in Cuba that control had become absolute over "nearly all economic activity."
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