Cuba will allow a wholesale farm produce market in Havana to follow market rules as from July 1, according to a Cuban television report Friday.
‘The opening of this wholesale market is part of a new agricultural trade system that will go into effect … in the provinces of Havana, Artemisa and Mayabeque,’ the report said.
At this market run by a private cooperative, prices will follow the laws of supply and demand instead of government orders, according to the report.
This market will be the first of its kind in Cuba since the 1960s when the government imposed state controls on all economic activities.
The move is part of limited free-market reforms that Cuban President Raul Castro has gradually introduced since 2008, which have given rise to a fledgling private sector involving some 400,000 people.
More than 174,000 Cubans are working on some 523,000 hectares of previously fallow land that the government has leased out to boost agricultural production on the island.
-With New Age input
