HAVANA, Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Over 400 private, non-agricultural cooperatives have been approved in Cuba since the country opened its private sector for an experimental phase in 2012.
In a speech published Wednesday by the official daily Granma, Director of the Permanent Commission for Implementation and Development, Yovana Vega, indicated that these cooperatives now included over 12,000 partners.
Eighty-eight percent of them are covered by major sectors, including restaurants, commerce, personal services and repairmen, construction and industry.
Vega said the private cooperatives had showed positive results as a source of job creation, while achieving "acceptable" diversity and quality for their services.
However, she added that certain limitations and deficiencies had been found since 2012, such as a lack of discipline, illicit appropriation of resources and income, as well as people acting as partners in various cooperatives at once.
According to Vega, problems were also found in accounting and bookkeeping, the use of bank cards in ways not agreed upon when issued, and corruption.
The Cuban government is currently seeking to consolidate the creation of private cooperatives, according to the main principles of socialism as part of the updating of the socio-economic model in the country.
Currently, around 568,000 Cubans work in the private sector, representing 12 percent of the island's workforce.
