Cuban lawmakers unanimously approved sweeping reforms that would privatize a vast swath of the country's socialist economy in a bid to survive punishing US sanctions, Reuters reports.

The measures, if implemented as passed, would represent the single largest change to Cuba's socialist model since former leader Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution and a major shift towards a market economy. The shift to a market economy has been supported by the Communist Party and former leader Raul Castro, who was recently indicted by the US over the 1996 shooting down of aid planes.

The reforms open the door to private real estate development on the Caribbean island, propose to transform state-owned businesses into private commercial ventures with shares and equity stakes and would allow private banks to enter Cuba's once state-dominated finance sector.

They would also allow the "sale of state-owned properties to national and foreign legal entities and individuals, including Cubans residing abroad," according to a televised presentation to lawmakers - a major change in a country where the state has long held control over land and industry.

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, in a speech just prior to Thursday's vote, told lawmakers to keep the faith in Cuba's socialist past. Prime Minister Manuel Marrero told legislators the measures recognize the market as "an instrument for the efficient allocation of resources," in a highly unusual concession from a Communist Party official in Cuba.

The list of upwards of 175 measures, presented in a nearly two-hour-long speech to lawmakers by the prime minister, received a rubber stamp unanimous vote late on Thursday afternoon of the National Assembly.

Until now, the Cuban Communist Party has followed Karl Marx’s teachings, considering a market economy incompatible with socialist construction. But Cuban state leaders, like the leaders of the USSR and China, have argued that market reforms are intended to improve socialism.

“We are not renouncing socialism,” President Diaz-Canel declared. “What is being debated here is the dilemma of how to continue the process of socialist construction, which has suffered the longest blockade in history from the world's greatest power," he said in reference to US sanctions.

“The updating of the economic and social model has the essential purpose of improving the quality of life of our compatriots,” added Prime Minister Marrero. Even before the US blockade, which began in January, Cuba was plunged into the most severe economic crisis in its entire post-revolutionary history.

And the loss of oil imports has led to a near-total standstill of the economy. Many in Cuba are unable to go to work and study because much of public transport is out of service. Even in the capital, Havana, there is no electricity for most of the day.