During the year 2000, Lebanon has seen some notable achievements. Two football stadiums were built to international standards at Saida and Tripoli for the Asian Cup competition held in Lebanon. Fifteen schools destroyed during the war have been rebuilt and the contract for the equipment of the new Beirut Government Hospital has been awarded. The second phase of the airport terminal was officially opened and the whole airport project is now substantially finished, with only a few ancillary works to complete. There are other achievements, which I shall leave for the following pages of this report.

Last year CDR completed the preparation of the Five Year Development Plan and it has now been approved by the Council of Ministers with a total investment of US$6.35bn. Following the liberation of southern Lebanon, CDR has developed a special five year plan for the South, with investments of around US$1.3bn, of which some US$800m is already included in the overall Development Plan. This new plan aims at meeting the special needs of the South and includes not only urgently needed basic services, but also significant elements for assistance, compensation and socio-economic regeneration in this part of the country.

Turning to the year 2001, CDR will be concentrating its efforts particularly on four areas of our activity:

First, we have a number of funding agreements under which finance is available but has not yet been utilised. We shall be making special efforts to speed the full preparation of the projects concerned to the standards required by the financing agencies in order to be able to start the projects sooner and to benefit from the available finance before its expiry date. This will also mean giving special attention to securing the timely completion of any necessary expropriation procedures and of other preliminaries that may be required before project implementation can start.

Secondly, we shall do all we can to secure the early completion of a number of projects that are in progress and of others that are in preparation, such as: - The Beirut Governmental Hospital, which it is planned to open in November 2001, - The Lebanese University campus at Hadath, where we shall finish some of the buildings before the end of the year, - Hospitals in course of construction in various areas and equipment to enable hospitals to be fully operational by the end of this year, - The 400kV connection between the Lebanese and Syrian electricity systems as part of the project to link the electricity grids of five Arab countries, - The National Control Centre for electricity supply, - Rehabilitation and upgrading of the water supply and wastewater systems in Sour and Nabatieh city, Taibeh water treatment plant and the Awali-Beirut conveyor, - Nabaa el Madik catchment and the conveyor to the Kesrouan coastal area water supply system, - The first phase of the southern irrigation project from the Litani (Conveyor 800), - Wastewater treatment plants at Dora and at many other places throughout the country such as Chouf, Nabatieh, Khinchara, Jbeil, Saida, Chekka, Batroun, Tripoli, Zahle and Qaraoun lake in the Bekaa, - New water supply networks in all regions, - The Metn Expressway (Nahr el Maout-Jouret el Ballot, Mar Chaiya-Baabdat), - Main roads in the Tripoli area and the interchanges at the northern and southern entrances to Beirut, - The Damascus road from Hazmieh to Chtaura, - Several roads in the southern area, - Jbab al Homr-Sir el Dannieh road.

Thirdly, in preparing projects we shall give even greater importance to reducing regional disparities by securing balanced development for the regions in line with the priorities set by the Government.

Finally, in order to help us achieve these aims, new steps will be taken to improve our collaboration and co-ordination with all parties at all levels, including Ministries and other public and private sector bodies.

CDR itself is about to undergo a positive organisational change. In February 2001, the Council of Ministers approved a new law which merges the Conseil Exécutif des Grands Projets and the Conseil Exécutif des Grands Projets de la Ville de Beyrouth into CDR to form one new body. It is clear that the new organisation will have a wider jurisdiction and will be better able to pursue the aims which have been set for it.

We hope that this report will shed some light on the progress that has been made thus far and we look forward to meeting the challenges ahead.

Mahmoud OSMAN
President of CDR