HAVANA (Reuters) – Cash-strapped Cuba should consider putting more of its state-run economy in the hands of producers, as President Raul Castro has done with agriculture, the country’s top economic commentator said on Tuesday.

Ariel Terrero, during his regular Tuesday appearance on state-run television, did not call for private management, but suggested that sectors such as food services and retail could perform better if they were run in a new way.

“In the Cuban economy, there’s a need to look for formulas more dynamic, more intelligent, of understanding property, of running a business, of running a cafeteria,” he said.

About 90 percent of communist-led Cuba’s economy is under state control.

Terrero pointed to Castro-led reforms in the island’s agriculture that include decentralization of decision-making, greater emphasis on private cooperatives and farms, and the leasing of state lands to some 80,000 individuals.

“The leasing of state lands, which in the end is the placing of state property in the hands of producers, could be applied in other sectors, for example food services, retail trade, and other areas where really it is impossible, given the diversity and breadth, for the state to administer directly,” he said.