Prime minister Dr Wael al-Halqi confirmed that Syrian debt is no more than half a million dollars on Thursday and said the amount is decreasing through regular payments.
Halqi was commenting during a graduation ceremony for the ninth group of the National Institute for General Management students in the capital.
Halqi also used the occasion to affirm the government's determination to fight terrorism and provide for the Syrian people.
Terrorism, he said "will not prevent the government from proceeding with the development and management of the economy,” Halqi said.
He clarified the process of a comprehensive reform program, saying that steps had been taken in the areas of workers’ laws, contracts, judicial law and public private partnership.
Halqi said the government will continue to apply the policy of applying aid, adding that it has allocated 615 SP to the 2014 balance of 50 billion SP already allocated to rebuilding.
Halqi said the government “helps the people more than it used to, before the crisis” and that it is activating small and medium sized projects. Some factories, he said, have already begun to export their goods, especially textiles, as part of efforts to decrease imports.
The Prime Minister said that the national economy could face the war on Syria, despite the dimensions of the crisis and the losses resulting from sanctions and terrorist acts.
“The Syrian debts are not more than half a billion dollars,” he said.
Halqi stressed that Syria will attend the international conference on Syria on a national basis.
“Those who think we will go to hand over power are wrong… we will continue the national dialogue on the Syrian land after the international conference,” he said.
“The people will decide through polls and through a national policy.”
Translated and edited by the Syrian Observer
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