With the sales plan corresponding to the first month of 2023 fulfilled, the Juan Antonio Márquez Brush and Plastic Items Company, Cepil, from Ciego de Ávila, celebrates its 60th anniversary on February 13. At that founding moment, as it is known, Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, promoter of the industry in Cuba, was there.

The achievement of this goal in January is taxed to the economic plan of the entity, estimated at more than 114 million pesos and 53 million profits, with which the activity levels of 2022 are recovered, after the lack of raw materials and the low availability of electricity affected the main productions of Cepil's portfolio.

If the company did not fall into the red in the midst of these adverse circumstances, it was due to the desire to take advantage of all kinds of available plastics, idle and recycled inventories say. They had been doing it since 2021, when the harsh impact of COVID-19 was another major stumbling block in economic-productive performance.

From that fateful moment, Carlos Sosa Castro, general secretary of the Union Bureau in Cepil, had told Invasor that “the rate of interruptions remained very low, since we looked for alternatives so that all workers receive their full salaries. At the toughest moment of COVID-19, we formed two brigades: one collaborated in loading and unloading the oxygen bottles at the Gas Company, and the other in the investigation. Only about 20 people were identified as vulnerable and were protected according to the law. The office staff that could have moved to telecommuting and remote work.”

In this spirit of not letting itself be overwhelmed by adversity, last year the company undertook the repair and improvement of conditions in the Neonatology ward of the Doctor Antonio Luaces Iraola General Provincial Hospital and, thanks to the inventiveness of its workers, managed to replace the plastic component of the cribs.

That same inventiveness keeps the machines highly technical and continues to find alternative methods to expand the more than 50 lines that the entity can show in its business portfolio. It was not for nothing that they deserved the Latir Avileño condition at the end of 2022, delivered by the Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba in Ciego de Ávila. Together with its productivity and efficiency indicators, we cannot think of a better gift for this group after six decades of work.