New bank to promote Syrian exports

The Syrian Cabinet agreed under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mahmoud Zou'bi on establishing the first bank for developing Syrian exports, with a capital of $21.6 million.

Syrian sources in Cairo said the bank aims at encouraging exports abroad and at supporting Syrian businessmen in their trade through multiple banking operations.

The bank will ratify exporters' and importers' deposits, foreign currencies and run the banking operations.

On the other hand, a statistic released by the Syrian Cabinet today confirming a good average development in 1998 in comparison to 1997.

The statistic said that "the value of the local production reached 1,402 billion Syrian liras in 1998 in comparison to 1256 billion liras in 1997.