Cuba gets serious on development path

** FILE ** Cuban President Fidel Castro, left, and his brother, Minister of Defense Raul Castro, attend a Cuban Parliament session in the Palace of Conventions in this July 1, 2004, file photo in Havana, Cuba. It was announced, Monday, July 31, 2006, that Fidel Castro has temporarily relinquished presidential power to his brother Raul due to illness. (AP Photo/Cristobal Herrera, file )

HAVANA. — Cuba’s Council of Ministers has approved a series of “strategic” development measures as part of an ongoing process to modernise its aging economic model, official media reported on Tuesday.
The measures include the establishment of over 70 new non-agricultural co-operatives in both the public and private sectors, according to the Granma daily.

The new co-operatives, to be established with funding from the partners involved, will be able to apply for bank loans or credits in both the Cuban peso and the exchangeable Cuban convertible peso.

They will also be allowed to price their goods or services according to market conditions, Granma said. Cuba has already initiated free-market reforms in the agricultural field. Additionally, Cuban leader Raul Castro urged his cabinet to seek solutions to the country’s growing aging problem.

“We have to dig into this problem and do the corresponding experiments. This is a very serious problem, along with the (low) birth rate, and we must find a solution,” Granma quoted him as saying.

According to the latest figures of the 2012 Population and Housing Census, released last week, 18,3 percent of Cuba’s 11,16 million inhabitants are aged 60 or above. – Xinhua.