Lebanese Republic 
Minister of Economy and Trade Mansour Bteish met this morning with a delegation of The World Bank headed by Saroj Kumar
Minister of Economy and Trade Mansour Bteish met this morning with a delegation of The World Bank headed by Saroj Kumar Jha, the Regional Director of The Mashrek region, in the presence of Mrs. Alia Abbas, Director General of Ministry of Economy and Trade. Talks touched on the bilateral relations between both parties.
Discussions also tackled the soft loan agreement signed between Lebanon and the World Bank with an amount of 400 million dollars. In this regard, Minister Bteish made significant comments to the interest of Lebanon. On its turn, The World Bank Delegation showed its full willingness to re-negotiate the ambiguous terms in order to increase the lebanese job opportunities and boost the economic productivity.
To this end, Minister Bteish explained his economic point of view as well as his future vision for the growth of the lebanese economy, stressing on three main points: increase the productivity in the productive economic sectors; create new job opportunities and focus on the idea of applying “the humanitarian economy”.
Minister Bteish also called on the World Bank delegation to cooperate with Lebanon in this concern on the technical level in order to achieve sustainable economic growth.
Moreover, both parties agreed to permanently coordinate and hold joint meetings and workshops for the best application of the lebanese government directions.
Furthermore, Minister Bteish met, in presence of Minister of State for Foreign Trade, Hassan Mourad with the European Union Ambassador to Lebanon, Christina Lassen, who expressed satisfaction with the content of the Ministerial Declaration regarding the implementation of the reforms to improve the financial and economic situations.
Discussions between both parties tackled the “Cedar Conference” and ways of workings to promote the national production in order to create job opportunities for lebanese citizens and reduce the deficit in the public finance through performing electricity reforms and adjusting the taxes collection.
Minister Bteish praised the relation between Lebanon and the European Union calling for additional support to facilitate the exportation of lebanese products to European markets as well as to simplify the rules of origin for some lebanese products.
It was also agreed to hold periodic technical meetings in order to attain the desired outcomes.
