China and Syria will launch three joint oil projects in the Middle East country, including an oil refinery for US$1 billion, a top Syrian official said yesterday.

Syrian Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs Abdullah al-Dardari met with Premier Wen Jiabao yesterday afternoon to finalize the deal.

Addressing a press conference later, Al-Dardari said: "We are discussing with Sinopec to jointly establish a petroleum refinery with a daily capacity of 70,000 barrels of crude." New oilfields have been discovered in Syria this year.

The deal will be signed after technological and economic feasibility studies are completed, Syrian Minister of Oil and Mineral Resources Sufian Allaw said after the press conference.

"We will also cooperate with Sinopec to upgrade and renovate five old oil fields in Syria to improve oil productivity," Allaw said.

Syria will sign a contract with the China Petroleum Technology Development Corporation, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (Sinopec), to import oil exploration and mining machinery, with preferential loans from China.

"We will also invite China to conduct oil exploration in 5,000 square kilometers of Syrian waters," he said.

Dardari also discussed trade imbalance with Premier Wen. "China has become the largest trade partner of Syria. Our total trade in 2006 was US$1.4 billion, of which exports from China was US$1.2 billion," Dardari said.

"Premier Wen said we should make efforts to restore balance in trade. We really appreciate and respect his attitude on the issue," he said.

To solve the problem, Syria will make its products available at favorable prices and help its enterprises sell their goods in the Chinese market, he said. China, on the other hand, should offer as much convenience as possible and ease tariff and non-tariff barriers.

During the meeting with Wen, Dardari proposed building a China industrial zone and a China telecom park in Syria. He urged Chinese enterprises to increase investments in Syria, especially in the energy and power sectors.

"Syria's economy has been growing at a fast pace of 5 percent a year in recent times and needs about US$15 billion in investments in the next three years," said Dardari.

"About 100 Chinese enterprises are operating in Syria, many of which are successful and have expanded their businesses. We hope more Chinese companies will join them to make bigger contribution to the development of Syria," he added.

(China Daily, Xinhua News Agency July 11, 2007)