SYRIA - LPG Plant On Stream Soon.

A plant to produce 100 tons/day of LPG at Deir Ez Zor is to be on stream by the end of next month. Together with the other plants now in operation, this will made Syria self-sufficient in LPG and will save the country about $50m of LPG imports per annum, according to the Syrian Company for the Storage and Distribution of Oil Products.

Syria Needs To Spend $1.5 Bn/Year On Electricity, $100 Bn To Create Jobs By 2010: Demand for electric power in Syria is expected to grow from 22 billion kilowatt hours in 1999 to 73 billion in 2020, requiring investments in new generating plants averaging $1.5 billion per annum over the next 20 years, according to the country's ministry of electricity.

Most of the expansion in this sector will involve gas-fired power plants. About 3,000 MW of new power generating capacity is expected to be installed from 2004 to 2010.

Syria's population will increase by nearly 50% in the next ten years. The country will need $100 billion to create jobs for the millions of new people entering the work force. This is according to Dr. Aref Dalila, economics professor at the University of Damascus. Speaking at the opening of an international conference on investment in Syria, he said in 2010 the country's population will have grown to about 24.5 million, compared with about 17.5 million at present. So there will be about three million more people looking for jobs, he said.

The conference, held in Damascus on Nov. 9-10, was the first of its kind to be organised since the start of limited economic openness in 1991. Aimed at promoting the Syrian economy, it was attended by about 400 potential investors, including the International Finance Company (IFC), a private investment arm of the World Bank.

Dr. Dalila said the lowest estimates are that $10 billion a year in investment is needed to create jobs and eliminate unemployment. Calling on the government to increase its contributions, he said: "We should redouble our efforts to find the necessary investments". He and other speakers said the government would have to liberalise the investment regime and issue a new legal framework taking into account the fact that almost all countries around the world are opening up on a big scale in line with the global trends.

Syria suffers from a serious unemployment problem which could soon become explosive if the neighbouring Lebanese economy fails to take off as promised recently by Beirut's billionaire Prime Minister Rafic Hariri. Before Hariri stepped down as premier in late autumn of 1998, there used to be almost 1.5m Syrians working in Lebanon - mainly in the construction sector. In late 1998, after Hariri was replaced by Dr. Selim El Hoss under the then emerging presidency of Gen. Emile Lahoud, the Lebanese economy fell into recession and many Syrians lost their jobs in that country. By end-August 2000, there had been less than 800,000 Syrians working in Lebanon.

The government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mustapha Miro recently launched a $1 bn programme aimed at creating 440,000 new jobs. Dr. Dalila said that, provided they get improved incentives, Syrian, Arab and foreign investors would bring in large capital and "investors could realise significant profits under the right conditions". He said there was great potential in Syria's still untapped human and natural resources.