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institutions in northern Cyprus amounted to 9% of total employment in 1993 19 . In
1998, the CTCCB alone was the second largest employer in northern Cyprus,
second only to the government 20 .
Since the 1940s, every village in Cyprus had at least 1 co-operative society. Every
member of a village who worked in the village and who was over eighteen, was a
member of the village co-operative; this is still largely the case in northern Cyprus,
despite the upheavals of the recent past. Until 1959, the Turkish-Cypriot cooperative
movement shared the same history as Greek-Cypriot co-operation; until
then the co-operative movement in Cyprus was bi-communal. Co-operation was also
the pervasive organisational structure in the indigenous Cypriot economy at the
time. Much of its original inspiration lay in the British administration of the island.
However, on 9 September 1959, under the Zurich agreement, the departing British
Colonial Administration separated the Greek and Turkish Co-operative Central
Banks and independent co-operatives from their single, bi-communal organisations.
Like religion and éducation, these key economic institutions were to come under the
authority of the separate communal chambers which the departing British
Administration had set up. Turkish-Cypriot village co-operatives came under the
authority of the Turkish-Cypriot Communal Chamber, just as the Greek ones came
under the control of their own Communal Chamber (until it was dissolved following
the 1963 constitutional crisis). Co-operatives in mixed villages were generally
separated on communal grounds, with the British issuing financial sweeteners to
ease the transition.
19 "Turkisli Republic of Northern Cyprus", 1994. Statistical Yearbooks 1993. northern Nicosia:
"State" Planning Organisation, Prime Ministry, p. 133.
20 http://www.coopcb.com, Sept. 1998.
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