Damascus, (SANA)-National economy has achieved more successes due to openness to world economy and the signing of cooperation documents and establishing of extraordinary partnerships with a number of countries, a report of the Arab and International Relations Department at the Ministry of Economy and Trade said.

Focusing on the Ministry's activities in the first six months of 2010, the report showed that the Ministry signed a number of cooperation agreements, memos of understanding and protocols with several Arab and foreign countries in this period.

Most of those cooperation documents, the report said, were signed during meetings of joint committees with different countries including Iran, Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, Mauritania, Oman, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia and Kuwait.

According to the report, the Ministry is expected to sign more agreements on joint investment encouragement and protection and on trade and economic cooperation with Serbia, Montenegro, Thailand, Denmark, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Senegal, South Africa, Kazakhstan, Albania, Hungary, Indonesia, Tanzania, Germany and Finland.

The Department indicated that a number of agreements signed last year already come into effect such as the two agreements signed with Armenia and Azerbaijan for joint encouragement and protection of investments.

The Department is following up on the ratification of a similar agreement signed with France, while two such similar agreements with Kuwait and Algeria were modified.

The possibility to expand the free trade agreement between Syria and Belarus to include Russia and Kazakhstan was discussed, according to the report.

The Department is also discussing the possibility of signing a free trade agreement with Ukraine and another with Malaysia.

An agreement on investment guarantee and protection signed between the member states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) and a protocol on rules of origin among the OIC members were ratified, while the ratification procedures for an economic cooperation agreement with Bulgaria are underway.

Haifa