Cuban taxi co-ops to attend civil society forums in Panama

HAVANA, Cuba, Mar 31 (acn) With the experience of being one of the new actors in the changes that Cuba undertakes to update its economic model, Martín José Betancourt, president of Taxi Rutero 2 co-operative, will participate in the Business Forum of the coming 7th Summit of the Americas (SOA).

Betancourt will travel to Panama along with more than one hundred representatives of Cuban civil society, including young people, intellectuals, peasants, self-employed and academics who will be present at the discussion forums of SOA, which Cuba will attend for the first time, as a result of strong and unanimous consent of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Organized by the Government of the Republic of Panama and the Inter- American Development Bank, the 2nd business forum of SOA will meet from next April 8 through the 10th with leaders of the sector in order to discuss opportunities for trade and investments, for achieving social and economic development of the continent.

In an exclusive interview with ACN, Betancourt said the most important thing for him is to exchange on the progress of his young company, genuine expression of successful steps being taken by Cuba, in order to consolidate the model of cooperative management as more socialized form of work to help free-up the country's development.

Convinced that this system came to the Cuban economic scenario to stay, the entrepreneur noted that "the momentum of these organizations outside the agricultural sector is not a temporary measure, nor a way of the state to avoid responsibilities, but a way to improve the quality of service for the benefit of the population."

Taxi Rutero 2 emerged as a proposal of the Ministry of Transport but with much will of its members, who today have incomes five times higher than they had as state employees, and participate directly in the decision making of the organization, said Betancourt.

According to him, assuming the management model has considerably reduced the bureaucratic burden on the creation and adoption of management indicators, sole responsibility of the cooperative now.

Fruit of the boost in Cuba to this form of collective ownership, still running as a pilot program, 498 cooperatives have been approved to date, 347of which are already established, mainly devoted to gastronomy, retail trade of agricultural products, construction and personal and technical services.