Fidel Castro confirmed he had resigned from the top leadership of the Cuban Communist Party.Castro said this in an article published today, after his party approved a raft of economic reforms.Castro, 84, had served as first secretary in the Central Committee of the party, which underpins the country's Communist government since the party's creation in 1965.Fidel said he had handed over the functions of the party head to Raul Castro when he ceded power to his brother because of his own declining health in 2006, though he retained the first secretary title.The move came after the sixth Communist Party Congress approved a flurry of measures on Monday aimed at keeping Cuba's centrally planned economy from collapse but without any broad embrace of market-oriented economic change.The changes inject a modicum of the free market into the island's economy ahead of a vote today expected to officially relieve 84-year old Castro of his position as party head after more than four decades.The 1,000 delegates gathered in Havana for the four-day party congress approved some 300 economic proposals and elected a new central committee leadership.Reforms include the cutting of eventually, a million state jobs and de-centralising the agricultural sector.