Prime Minister Saad Hariri received Tuesday at the Grand Serail the Dean of the Executive Directors Board of at the World Bank Dr. Merza Hasan.

Hasan stated the following after the meeting: “We underlined during the meeting the strategic partnership between the World Bank and Lebanon, which received a lot of support from the Bank. It is the only country in the world, from the countries of the same developmental category, that received an exemption from the interest increase and this is considered an advantage.

We hope that the resources allocated to Lebanon by the World Bank would be used, especially the interest-backed financial resources. We are interested in many projects, especially in the sectors of electricity, transport and communications, because we believe that if these sectors are liberalized, there will be a qualitative leap for Lebanon economically which will create employment opportunities for young people.”

He added: “The strategic program we apply in Lebanon depends more on the private sector, and the World Bank will be a strategic partner by setting some guarantees for the private sector to work in Lebanon. Even if the private sector has some losses, we can deal with it. Thus, we wish the economy would rely more on the private sector and less on the role of government.”