Syria's economic growth rate to reach 6.5pc

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DAMASCUS, Aug 14 (Xinhua): Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah al-Dardari stated yesterday that the economic growth rate was expected to reach 6.5 per cent by the end of 2007, compared with that of 6.2 per cent in the past year.
Speaking on the occasion of the 16th journalists' day, Dardari noted that the current growth relied on agriculture, industry, trade, services and investment instead of petroleum, according to the official SANA news agency.
"This type of growth lasts longer and achieves higher added values," he was quoted as saying.
The unemployment rate has decreased from 11.5 per cent in 2001 to 8.4 per cent in the first half of 2007, which is a positive indicator to the quality of the economy, added the senior official.
On investment, Dardari said around 20 billion US dollars were allocated to projects between 2004 and 2006, affirming that the government will be working during 2007 and 2008 to realise these projects.
The government would also continue with tax reforms, reducing bureaucratic restraints and increasing financial, banking and job-market reforms.
Dardari continued that overall exports increased from 3.75 billion dollars in 2000 to 10.7 billion dollars in 2006, which is a remarkable improvement since most of these exports are non- petroleum.
He clarified that petroleum exports amounted to more than 70 per cent of overall exports in 2000, which decreased to less than 40 per cent of overall exports.
Syria also gained a trade surplus of more than 2 billion dollars in the first half of 2007 as exports reached 6.66 billion dollars compared with imports of 4.04 billion dollars, he added.