Cuba opens food market for pvt sector

HAVANA, Mar 18 (Xinhua): The Cuban government opened on Saturday in Havana, its first wholesale food-market for the private sector as part of the process to update the country's economic model.

This market center to operate under the name of "Mercabal" will for the moment, only have clients from the non-agricultural cooperatives, explained the Domestic Trade Minister, Mary Blanca Ortega.

The Mercabal sells beans, cigars, soft drinks, beer, sugar, salt, jam, hamburgers, sausages and chicken.

The newspaper said that the market was part of the reordering process of trade to satisfy one of the most frequent demands of those working in the new types of state management in the country.