The Syrian Minister of Industry, Issam Al-Zaeem, stated that Syria’s general budget for 2002 consists of 184 billion Syrian Pounds in investments compared with SP 154 billion in 2001. The minister added that this SP30 billion ($583 million) investment will boost general and private investments in the country, reported Al-Watan .
Lecturing at the Faculty of Economics at the Damascus University, the Minister added that increasing investments is the sole method to curb the economic slowdown in Syria. Al-Zaeem added that the Syrian economy has been suffering from poor investment rates from the GDP. At the end of the nineties, the average investment rate was approximately18 percent of the GDP, of which 11 percent came from the public sector and the rest from the private sector. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
