According to the statistics of the Department of Co-operative Development of the Ministry of Co-operative and Internal Trade of Sri Lanka, there are 10,002 co-operative societies with 6,303,306 members in Sri Lanka. Among them, there are 305 multipurpose co-operative societies with 4,033,607 members. Multi-purpose co-operative societies run businesses such as retailing, insurance, medical, banking etc., and belong to the consumer co-operative sector. (Ref: https://jccu.coop/eng/public/pdf/asia_2012_12.pdf )

Sri Lanka has further included another cooperative in its growing cooperative business environment with the name of COOP YES founded by 23 members to uplift the youth in the process.

Sri Lankan Co-operative sector is fortunate enough to have a very effective and sustainable strategic plan for establishing the Cooperative Youth Empowerment Society ltd on September 4, 2018, for the upliftment of Youth community in Sri Lanka in term of its knowledge, skill and living standards.

Mr. S L Naseer, the Commissioner of Cooperative Development and Registrar of Cooperative Societies was greatly supported to develop the society. Those who have worked continuously to establish this society were entered in to the Society as founder members. The number of founder members was 23 along with the Hon. Minister of Cooperatives. A full day workshop was held on 4^th of October at Sri Lanka Foundation Institute with the participation of reputed consultants for the Development of Action Plan for three years to fix the development milestones of COOP YES. 23 members were selected for the Board of Directors (BOD) by an independent election method ensuring the Democratic Member Control component of the cooperative principles, and different responsibilities were assigned to them to look in to the different disciplines of development.”

As reported by Naseer Naura Director International Relation & Dty. Secretary and information by Udaya Prabath Vice Chairperson of ICYC.