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A few new co-operatives were formed in 1974, while many existing co-operatives
were merged or dissolved as members of various dormant co-operatives, from
villages that no longer had a Turkish-Cypriot population, were dispersed and resettled
north of the UN Buffer Zone. Until 1976, when the Turkish-Cypriot cooperative
movement experienced its major re-organisation, co-operatives that were
active in 1973 remained in business north of the UN Buffer Zone, while inactive cooperatives
largely remained so also. By 1976 it was considered that there were too
many of the wrong sort of co-operatives, many of which were no longer
functioning. Many members of formerly southern located co-operatives were
dispersed throughout the north or had migrated, so this period of rationalisation was
necessary. The trend towards the expansion of multi-purpose co-operatives, a trend
that was begun before 1974, was put into opération, as multi-purpose co-operatives
performed a criticai function of distributing agricultural and subsistence
prerequisites in the now sparsely populated north. The number of Credit Societies
and Consumer Societies was cut dramatically (see Table 4.1), the number of
Savings Banks remained faìrly static, while the number of multi-purpose cooperatives
increased more than four-fold.
83 new co-operatives were created to
replace co-operatives formerly located in the Paphos, Limassol and Larnaca régions.
These new co-operatives were ali multi-purpose co-operatives, created to rationalise
provision so that Turkish settlers and Turkish-Cypriots in abandoned Greek-Cypriot
villages would have only one co-operative, but one that offered a full range of
services, from agricultural credit to retail services. Multi-purpose co-operatives
were seen as the new panacea, providing vital services to the many recently
abandoned villages of north Cyprus. Villages in the north that had always been
Turkish Cypriot, generally retained their existing co-operatives and if they were
functioning successfully, a plurality of them was permitted to continue operating.
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