Damascus, (SANA)-Development can no longer be measured independently; it must be measured in terms of other competitors in world economy, Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah al-Dardari said on Sunday.

Al-Dardari was quoted at the opening of the National Competitiveness Conference as saying "it is important to know our position on the global competitiveness map to find out our points of weakness and strength."

The two day Conference will discuss strategies to develop industries and foreign direct investment and analyzing value added measures. It was held in cooperation between Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Support Program implemented by the Syrian Enterprise and Business Center (SEBC) and the National Competitiveness Observatory (NCO).

Al-Dardari called on private and public institutions to draw up new policies to be able to run a competitive economy and to increase economic value added so as to occupy a larger space in the international value added chain and the international division of labor.

"To enter the international markets we need to calculate the total standard production costs of many small economic constructions. This requires studies to reduce prices and costs to achieve competitiveness and sustainability," he added.

Head of the SEBC Board of Directors Rateb al-Shallah said the 10th five-year plan focused on the need to increase the level of competitiveness as the way towards high quality low-cost products.

Head of the team of experts at The EU-funded Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) Support Program said competitiveness is a multi-faceted concept whose core is to make economic constructions more powerful both partially and totally.

H. Said /al-Ibrahim