US$ 1.7 billion deal for unemployment; house cleaning continues
Syria, Politics, 7/4/2000

The deputy director general of the Damascus International fair Ali Abdul Majid al-Hou was arrested on Monday while a warrant of arrest was released against the Fair's financial director, in the framework of the corruption fighting campaign in Syria.

Well-informed sources in Damascus said that al-Hou and the financial director of the Damascus International Fair are accused of " wasting the public assets, corruption and releasing checque in 'false names' under pretext that these checques were won in lottery run by the Fair." Meantime, the prime minister Muhammad Mustafa Miro said that the government has allocated a sum of 80 billion Syrian pound ( US $ 1.7 billion) to solve the unemployment problem the labor market in Syria suffers. This market, according to economic sources receive annually 200,000 workers.

In a meeting which was held at the ministry of planning in the presence of high ranking Syrian officials on Sunday and dedicated to this problem, the foreign minister said that the government has adopted an " emergency plan" to find out work opportunities for the unemployed, whose numbers are increasing in the recent years However, economic sources said that Syria whose annual population growth ranges between 3.2 and 3.5 the highest in the world, is considered one of the young societies which needs to ensure 200,000 work opportunities annually for persons who join the labor market. The economic sources added that ensuring work opportunities for those young people needs US $ 2 billion annually.

However, no precise figures are so far available about the volume of unemployment in Syria.

Yet, the Syrian daily Tishreen quoted Miro as saying in that meeting that the government is very interested to get true statistics and information to this effect because " true figure leads to a correct decision and that the ministry of state for planning will be concerned with verifying the figures submitted by the public and private sides to this effect."

Worthy mentioning the government dedicates annually at the state's general budget some 90,000 job opportunities in the government's establishments and 30,000 job opportunities in the private sector. These chances increased following the release of law no 10 on encouraging investment for 1991, on the ground of which several projects were carried out in need of labor force.

The Syrian prime minister stressed that the government will give greater interest to qualifying and training workers and it is studying making amendments of operation laws.

Officials sources explained that discussions during the meeting dealt with issues relating to reforming the public economic sector, improving the state's general budget.

The official sources quoted the prime minister as saying that during the international and regional developments in the world during the past ten years " Syria has proven the vast and strategic horizon of Lt. Gen. Bashar al-Assad in dealing with the new factors and investing them for the process of building up and development."

Miro stressed that as from now the government is studying preparations for the state's budget for 2001. A fact which reveals improvement in the performance of the new ministry which assumed its responsibilities in march.

Miro said " we are planning to draw the state's budget for the year 2001. You at the ministry of planning are working to draw short and intermediate term plan for all economic, social and cultural activities in Syria which is considered the general framework drawn by the Cabinet as a project discussed by the government and other establishments.

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