Economy Minister: The State Bears 80 Percent of Citizens’ living

TARTOUS, (ST)- The Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade, Dr. Mohammad Zafer Mahbaq, underlined that the government follows a monetary policy based on the accounts and balances of the national reserves which helped to “maintain the rate of the Syrian pound in an acceptable way during the last two years.”

 During a meeting with economic activities in Tartous, the minister pointed that the war on Syria aimed at undermining our brave army, destroy our national economy by manipulating the prices of the exchange of Syrian Pound, smuggling billions of Syrian pounds out of Syria and then buying dollars without concern for the loss or profit.

The minister pointed out to the importance of economic decisions issued by the ministry on proposals of businessmen through dialogues which are made through press or directly in order to serve citizens, noting to “the existence of government decisions to finance imports of basic commodities only because it is illogical financing of luxury goods in this stage.”

The economy minister said that the complaints received by the Governor of the Central Bank of Syria indicate that the burdens and financing of food commodities that conducted by dollar are sold the lowest price to the consumer where the seller prices according to the black market and ” the bank incurs this loss without the benefit of the consumer what requires traders to bear burdens and stay away from obsession to profit.”

The Minister of Economy and Foreign Trade pointed out that the government provides many facilities for contractors, particularly the exemption from fines in addition to compensation for price differences, stressing to study the request of any contractor to take advantage of these facilities.

The minister clarified that half of the state budget is dedicated to supporting food stuff, fuel oil and education, and this means that “the State bears 80 percent of living of citizens.”

Dr. Mahbaq called everyone to stop the speculation to store and monopoly materials and work to spread awareness in this field among all segments of society, pointing out that the national economy has exposed to a lot of vandalism at the hands of terrorist groups, however, ” the national economy is still intact and able to meet the basic needs of citizens “.

“The aim of the meeting with the economic activities in Tartous is to see the economic realities of the governorate and assess the impacts of decisions issued by the Ministry of Economy and Foreign Trade, and the possibility of overcoming the obstacles,” the minister commented.

For his part, Governor of Tartous, Nizar Mousa, underlined the importance of the meeting between the Minister of Economy with the businessmen and members of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce in Tartous to upgrade the economic reality in the governorate, which is getting ready to receive all industrialists from other governorates who their facilities were damaged by armed terrorist groups.

 The participants showed the need to finance imports of commodities, pointing out that the potential of investment in Tartous is weak and needs to be activated through facilitating the granting of licenses, increase support for exports of olive oil and citrus, overcome the routine procedures for both economic and supplying sides to ease the growing burdens on citizens.

Sh. Kh.