DAMASCUS,(SANA)- Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah al-Dardari stressed on Monday the importance of the 10th  5-year plan and the policy of trade and economic reforms in the foreign and internal trade .

Mr. Dardari said that releasing the grant given by the World Bank to enhance and build the national capabilities constitutes an important step in the program of implementing the 10th 5-year plan. "There should be a set of reforms in the foreign and internal policies to achieve competition and remove routine and obstacles related to the finance and banking systems," he added.

Dardari was speaking at the opening of a workshop held by the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs in cooperation with the World Bank on the program of the grant given by the Bank to boost and build national capabilities in the filed of putting social protection policies and their implementations in effect.

He called for the necessity of developing the Syrian banking  system in order to be able to mobilize resources in the right direction in integration with a social security network capable to securing the sense of social security to citizens in order to innovate.

For his part, Minister of Economy and Trade Dr. Amer Husni Lutfi emphasized that the final aim behind reforms is to raise the stander of living for citizens, pointing out that social and economic reforms can't be activated without social protection networks.  

Meanwhile, Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Mrs. Diala Hajj Arif expressed gratitude to the World Bank for presenting this grant, underling the importance of this workshop which comes as a result of competent experts.

For their part, Regional Director of the World Bank Joseph Saba and the Coordinator of Human Development at the Bank Hanin al-sayyed spoke about the importance of this cooperation between Syria and the World Bank and its significance in the economic and social fields.

Thawra/ Zahra