Rural Women’s Products Festival kicks off in Damascus

Damascus, SANA – Prime Minister Imad Khamis inaugurated on Wednesday the Rural Women’s Products Festival at al-Jalaa Sport City in Damascus under the slogan “Rural Women are Partners in Development”.

The Festival is organized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Agrarian Reform in cooperation with the Arab Center for the Studies of Arid Zones and Dry Lands (ACSAD).

The Festival aims at promoting and introducing the products of rural women’s projects, opening a direct communication channel between the producer and the consumer, exchanging experience among women entrepreneurs.

Primer Khamis listened to a detailed explanation about the obstacles and difficulties facing the process of manufacturing and marketing the products and the government’s support mechanism in this field.

He directed the Ministry of Internal Trade and Consumer Protection to buy rural women’s products and put them up for sale at competitive prices at the positive intervention outlets in the provinces, pointing out that these projects continue to expand and the government is working to provide special centers to market the products of rural women in each town and city of Syria.

In a press statement, Agriculture Minister Ahmad al-Qaderi affirmed that the Ministry continues to support the rural women and their activities and grant loans to them to set up small income-generating projects, noting that the most important working step is to market rural products.

He added that a center will be established in each province to sell rural women’s products.

For her part, Director of Rural Women Development at the Ministry of Agriculture Raeda Ayoub said that the Ministry has financed 19835 projects and 24,000 family farming projects, while the government approved the Ministry’s plan to finance a project worth AYP 1 billion to set up 5,000 manufacturing units.

M. al-Frieh/H. Said