HAVANA, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Cuba has seen initial results of economic reforms in 2013 under the leadership of President Raul Castro.

　　"We are beginning to see the first encouraging results," Castro said in a parliamentary session on the effects of his economic reforms. "However, it is also true that there is a long and complex road ahead in modernizing our economic and social model."

　　The biggest news of the year came in October, when the government announced it would gradually phase out the country's unique dual-currency system.

　　"I think it will be a step forward, and an immediate boost to all the necessary changes that are being implemented," Omar Everleny Perez, a researcher at Havana's Center for Cuban Economic Studies, told Xinhua.

　　At present, most Cubans are paid in the Cuban peso (CUP), but most goods in the country are sold with the hard currency convertible peso (CUC). The convertible peso is pegged to the U.S. dollar and worth about 4 U.S. cents or 25 CUPs.

　　Jose Luis Rodriguez, the former economy minister, believes it will take at least three years to unify the currency, a process that could unleash inflation if not well managed.

　　The dual system was first introduced during Cuba's economic crisis in the 1990s to help revive the economy, but eventually it led to distortions in business and even in the lives of ordinary citizens.

　　Cuba's biggest development project so far, the Mariel Port Special Development Zone (SDZ), was set up to boost economic growth.

　　Castro hopes the deep-water port will drive development by generating investment, exports, jobs and technology transfers, as well as attracting foreign companies and creating new Cuban enterprises.

　　Several nonagricultural cooperatives have been established and extended to include some 200 different economic activities.

　　These cooperatives, allowed to sell any additional goods or services after having supplied the government, are now operating in the fields of transportation, construction and the recycling, processing and selling of raw materials.

　　A new migration law was approved in January, which scrapped two onerous travel requirements: the exit permit and letter of invitation that had to be presented at Cuba's consulates abroad.

　　It frees the government from hours of bureaucratic work, and allows it to cut down the number of public-sector employees.

　　Today, Cubans only need a valid passport and a visa from their destination country to travel abroad.

　　A new Labor Code, which regulates wages and pensions in the private sector, is to be approved by the National Assembly (the unicameral Congress in Cuba), as more Cubans start their won private enterprises.

　　Some 3.5 million government and non-governement workers participated in public debates on the new law, which will replace the one dating back to1984.

　　New rules, approved by the ministries of Agriculture, Tourism, Finance and Prices, came into force in October, allowing small agricultural producers to sell their products directly to tourism businesses, instead of being brokered by cooperatives as before.