Cuba Grants Legal Autonomy to Co-ops

HAVANA TIMES — Cuba’s Council of Ministers approved a new general regulation which gives “legal autonomy to Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC),” reported the official Granma newspaper on Tuesday.

The resolution, which goes into effect “immediately,” approved a package of 17 measures confirming that UBPC’s are “not state-owned enterprises” and that these now “have the power to decide the percentage of earnings to be distributed among their members.”

The 1,989 UBPC cooperatives currently in existence will be able to make direct purchases, by check or cash, of certain unsubsidized products such as salt, sugar, vinegar and packaging and building materials.

In 1993, Executive Order 142 legalized the establishment of UBPC cooperatives on state owned land but was never able to clearly implement that proposed measure, which led to the cooperatives suffering from plans and directives imposed on them by the government, noted Granma.